All four people aboard a crashed propeller plane were found dead Sunday in the wreckage a day after it went down in the Northern Japan Alps in Toyama Prefecture, police said.

Their bodies were transferred to a hospital in Toyama city by helicopter from the crash site, which is near Kurobe Dam, a popular tourist destination.

Several meters of snow remain around the site, which is at an altitude of around 2,300 meters on a slope of Mt. Shisidake and where temperatures can fall below zero, the police said.

The four on board the aircraft were pilot Takao Kinoshita, 57, Eiji Oguchi, 48, Kazuki Higuchi, 22, and Katsuki Kasai, 21.

The police could not locate the crash site on Saturday partly due to thick fog.

The Japan Transport Safety Board on Sunday dispatched two officials to the crash site to look into the cause of the accident.

The crash occurred around 3 p.m. in Tateyama, Toyama Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, when the single-engine Cessna 172P was traveling from Toyama airport to Matsumoto airport in neighboring Nagano Prefecture on what appeared to be a training flight.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said the plane left Toyama airport at 2:23 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Matsumoto airport in about an hour.

The police said they received an emergency phone call from one of the passengers after the crash alerting them to the accident.

The plane, owned by New Central Airservice Co., headquartered in Ibaraki Prefecture, was being flown as a practice flight for Oguchi, who had obtained a pilot's license. Kinoshita, a veteran pilot with 35 years of experience, is believed to have been the instructor.