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Cessna’s crash leadsto inquiry, concernFour died in the latest Centennial Airportwreck Saturday. The cause isn’t known.

82˚ 56˚

A stain on the land

Spray-painted trail spoils pristine Holy Cross hike

HIGH LOW

VICTORY LANE ENCOREBOURDAIS WINS SECOND STRAIGHT GRAND PRIX

By Kieran Nicholson,George Merrittand Allison SherryDenver Post Staff Writers

Federal investigators combedthe 1,000-foot-long DouglasCounty site Sunday where a Lit-tleton executive’s twin-engineCessna crashed, killing all fourpeople aboard.Federal investigators and lo-

cal authorities did not name thefour people killed in the Satur-day night crash, but the aircraft,a twin-engine Cessna 425, is reg-istered to Littleton businessmanStephan Gavit.Gavit was returning to Colo-

rado from a fishing trip to Idahowith his grandson and two oth-ers, friends and associates said.On Sunday, family and friends

visited the crash site in themead-ows south of the airport as inves-tigators sifted through thewreckage.“I’ve seen plane crashes be-

> See AIRPORT on 11A

By Steve LipsherDenver Post Staff Writer

Minturn — The route up to Mount of theHoly Cross through its namesake wildernessarea is lined with a rainbow of blue columbine,magenta fireweed and golden aster— and now,thanks to a spray-can-wielding itinerant, whitepaint.Officials at the U.S. Forest Service recently

learned that an unknown vandal has marked

dozens of rocks and even a tree trunk with2-foot-long painted arrows tomark a little-useddescent route on one of the most revered andbeloved of Colorado’s fourteeners, the 54 peaksthat are 14,000 feet or higher.“For over 100 years, people thought of this

place as pristine, so the damage cuts to the coreof the basic concept of wilderness,” said BethBoyst, wilderness specialist for theWhiteRiver

> See TRAIL on 8A

David Furst Agence France-Presse, Getty Images

Young Israelis opposed to plans to withdraw from the Gaza Strip burn army maps of Gaza on Sunday near the entrance toNeve Dekalim. Some damaged army vehicles. Neve Dekalim is the largest Israeli settlement in Gaza, with 2,500 residents.

COMPLETE COVERAGE OF THE GRAND PRIX OF DENVER > SPORTS, 1D

AirportworriesIncident re-ports to theFederal Avia-tion Administra-tion at high-vol-ume general-avi-ation airportssince 1995:

157Centennial

149Van Nuys, Calif.

144DeKalb

Peachtree,Atlanta

95Deer Valley,Phoenix

I-70 getsrockedto a halt3 slides deposit 1,500 tons of rockon the road west of Idaho Springs

HOURS OF DELAYS

CDOT crews hope to havethe debris cleared and thecliffs above westboundI-70 stabilized today.

By Anthee Carassava and Ian FisherThe New York Times

Athens, Greece — A Cypriot passenger planewith 121 people on board crashed Sunday justnorth of the Greek capital, after being shadowedfor 43 helpless minutes by fighter jets reportingthat the co-pilot was slumped over the controlsand that there was no sign of the pilot.TwoGreek fighter pilots, peering into the plane,

saw “a lifeless cockpit,” according to a Greek airforce spokesman, even though the Helios Air Boe-ing 737 continued flying, apparently on autopilot,for nearly three-quarters of an hour before itslammed into a wooded, uninhabited gorge nearthe town of Grammatikos at 12:03 p.m.There were no survivors in what officials called

Greece’sworst airline accident. Helios airline offi-cials refused to release the passenger list but said48 of the passengers were “youth travelers” boundfor Prague, CzechRepublic, after a stopover inAth-ens.The flight, a charter, had taken off from Larnaka

in Cyprus on its way to Prague via Athens. Greek

> See CRASH on 9A

Israel tense amid pulloutGaza crossings are sealed beforetroops deliver eviction noticestoday. Some Jewish settlers andsupporters clash with soldiers.

Lyn Alweis The Denver Post

U.S. Forest Service ranger Cindy Ebbert stands next to a vandalizedrock marking a route in the Holy Cross Wilderness Area last week.

By Michelle Wallarand Jim KirkseyDenver Post Staff Writers

West of Idaho Springs —Demolition crews blasted boul-ders on Interstate 70 on Sundayto help clear away rock that fellovernight, closing the west-bound lanes and backing up traf-fic for 15 miles.One boulder was estimated at

200 tons and measured 30 feetby 20 feet by 10 feet, and anotherwas about 100 tons and the sizeof a Chevrolet Blazer.A trio of rock slides Saturday

night and Sunday morning

dropped 1,500 tons of the RockyMountains on the road just westof Idaho Springs.The westbound lanes remain

closed between the west side ofIdaho Springs and the tiny townof Dumont, with traffic movingon the service road, although of-ficials hope to open the lanessometime today.All day Sunday traffic limped

around the slide.Jim King and his wife, Joan,

were trying to get home toGrand Junction from DakotaRidge campground in Golden.They had been in the stop-and-go traffic for four hours Sundayafternoon and were still a mileaway from being diverted ontothe frontage road at mile marker239.“Thank God we have a trailer

with a bathroom,” Jim King said.Dee McAdow, traveling with

> See SLIDE on 11A

Pilotless jet goesdown in Greece,killing 121 aboardGreek fighter jets shadowing the 737 find“lifeless cockpit.” Terrorism isn’t suspected.

ByMichael Matza, Dion Nissenbaumand Nathaniel HoffmanKnight Ridder Newspapers

Neve Dekalim, Gaza Strip — After38 years of occupation and months ofpreparation and protest, Israel began itswithdrawal from the Gaza Strip on Sun-day by sealing the area and preparing todeliver final eviction notices to thou-sands of Jewish settlers.Soldiers closed border crossings be-

tween Israel and Gaza at midnight Sun-day, and police erected roadblocks onroutes leading to the predominantly Pal-estinian region in an attempt to mini-mize demonstrations by Jewish oppo-nents of the withdrawal.It’s now illegal for Israelis to live in

Gaza.Palestinians planted flags and de-

ployed troops near some Jewish settle-

ments and called for the “liberation” ofthe West Bank and Jerusalem. Bannersproclaiming “Today Gaza, tomorrowJerusalem” flew in Gaza City.Thousands of defiant Israeli settlers

and 5,000 supporters who flocked toGaza gathered themselves for the nextstep: the arrival today of Israeli soldiersand police officers carrying writtenevacuation orders and offering to packthe settlers’ belongings.The operation carries the title of “Yad

Ahim,” or “AHand toOurBrothers.”De-spite that euphemistic touch, tensionswere high in Gaza and Israel.As the day ended, skirmishes between

young resisters and soldiers flared inNeve Dekalim, the largest Israeli townin Gaza, with 2,500 residents.Demonstrators punctured tires ofmil-

itary vehicles and looted at least onejeep.Anyone still there or in the 20 other Is-

raeli villages and towns in Gaza onWednesday will be subject to physicalremoval by 55,000 soldiers and police.

> See GAZA on 11A

David Silverman Getty Images

Withdrawal detailsSettlements involved: All 21 in the Gaza Stripand four in the northern West Bank, home to9,000 Jews, are being evacuated.Why: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says the with-drawal will improve security and strengthen Is-rael’s hold on West Bank communities wheremost of the 240,000 Jewish settlers live.Opposition: Settler groups and hard-liners ac-cuse Sharon of caving in to Palestinian violence.Palestinians’ view: They say the next stepmust be a resumption of peace talks aimed atfurther withdrawals and Palestinian statehood.

Matthew Staver Special to The Denver Post

Interstate 70 motorists stretch their legs and wait Sunday asboulders are blasted to clear debris from a series of rock slides.

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