SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Search crews found the bodies of seven people in the wreckage of an airplane carrying nine skydivers and pilot that went missing over the Cascade mountains of Washington state on Sunday, a state spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

"They have recovered seven bodies," Nisha Marvel, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Transportation, told Reuters by telephone. "The plane is not intact. There are scattered pieces everywhere."

By following the smell of fuel, ground crews discovered the crash site on Monday night in rough mountainous terrain and amid heavy timber in an area of the Cascades range west of Yakima, Washington, Marvel said.

They found seven bodies before breaking off their search for three others who had been aboard the Cessna aircraft, Marvel said. The search resumed Tuesday morning.

The skydivers were returning to western Washington from an event in Idaho.

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