A body has been recovered near the wreckage site of a private crop-dusting plane recovered Monday evening in Neshoba County after a three-day search.

Neshoba County Sheriff Donnie Adkins said the discovery was made about 10 p.m. after authorities from neighboring Winston County assisting in the search found the duster near County Road 765 in northeast Neshoba.

“It was burned beyond recognition,” Adkins said.

The body was taken to the state medical examiner’s office in Jackson, Adkins said.

Ashley Hudson Smith of Vicksburg said Monday she believed the pilot of the plane is her father, Monty Hudson, 48, of Jonesboro, Ark.

Hudson was last seen Friday as his aircraft and a companion plane were flying from a timber-dusting job in Greenville, Ala. Smith said her father was to refuel the plane in Cleveland, Miss.

The second plane crash-landed near Meridian, Smith said, and its pilot was not injured.

Hudson, a Vicksburg native and a 15-year pilot, flew crop dusters for 10 years, said Smith, a teacher at Vicksburg Intermediate and one of several relatives of Hudson’s in Vicksburg. 

Air and ground teams with the Alabama wing of the Civil Air Patrol searched territory in west Alabama and east Mississippi over the weekend. Efforts were halted Sunday because of bad weather. Authorities’ search was aided by a text message sent from Hudson’s cell phone, said to be the lone communications device in the plane.

Hudson was the only occupant of the plane at the time of its disappearance.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com