RIVERSIDE -- Body parts and wreckage from what may have been a small plane with four people aboard that disappeared Sunday during a snowstorm near Joshua Tree were recovered Tuesday in the mountains of San Bernardino County, a sheriff's spokeswoman said.

A family member of one of the people on the plane called authorities Sunday to report the plane was late returning to Hesperia.

A sheriff's helicopter search crew found the wreckage Monday on Dobbs Peak, about a mile west of San Gorgonio Mountain, the highest point in Southern California at 11,500 feet, said San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller.

The downed aircraft was in so many pieces that the 10-member recovery team was unable to confirm the tail number, and officials had not confirmed that the crashed plane was the one that disappeared Sunday, Beavers said.

The human remains have not been identified, she added.

The recovery effort by coroner's investigators and alpine-trained volunteers was delayed until Tuesday because of unfavorable weather conditions, including poor visibility.

The recovery team was dropped off by helicopter on a ridge and had to repel down to the wreckage, hampered by snow, ice and slush, she said.

The missing plane, whose pilot was last heard from Sunday in Palm Springs, bore tail number N312AG, according to Ian Gregor of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Authorities did not say who owned the plane, but according to records, the tail number is that of a Piper PA-32S-300 owned by a Hesperia man.

The plane started out in San Felipe, Mexico, on Sunday morning, and landed to pass through customs at Calexico, before taking off again for Hesperia, Gregor said.

Air traffic controllers in Palmdale said the plane dropped off their radar southwest of Joshua Tree shortly before noon Sunday, Gregor said.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller said the pilot's last radio contact was with the tower at Palm Springs airport.

A cold front brought snow, sleet, hail, wind gusts up to 55 mph and white-out conditions to mountain areas on Sunday.