PORTLAND (AP) - Cessna Aircraft Co. plans to close a plant in Bend that it bought nearly 18 months ago for $26 million, its hopes for a turnaround dashed as buyers canceled orders and put off purchases.

Cessna and its parent company, Textron Inc., bought the plant from Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Co. in December 2007.

It builds the high-performance, single-engine Cessna 350 and 400 Corvalis TT models priced from $500,000-$600,000 meant for entrepreneurs, small-business owners and some high-end flight schools. In June 2008, the Bend plant was still hiring workers and had increased its production goal to 150 planes by the end of the year.

But today, the company said the effects of recession had taken an increasing toll on the company, resulting in a decision to close the Bend plant.

It once employed more than 400 workers, but after two rounds of layoffs, it is down to about 150.

"As production continues to fall, these requirements come to us,'' said Cessna spokesman Doug Oliver at Cessna headquarters in Wichita, Kan.

The company said production of the Bend models will shift to Cessna's plant in Independence, Kan.

"Some of those people will be offered jobs in Independence. Most will not,'' Oliver said.

He said that workers to be laid off will get 60-day notices, and the transition of the production facilities to Kansas would take place over the summer.

The closure announcement came on the same day that the U.S. Labor Department identified the Bend metro area as having the second-highest unemployment rate increase in the nation for March, increasing to 17 percent from 9.2 percent a year earlier.

Cessna said today that that it had started laying off 1,600 workers throughout the company. An additional 700 salaried workers will lose their jobs in mid-June.

Of the job cuts that started Wednesday, 1,300 will be in Wichita and 121 will be in Independence, Kan.

Most of the 700 jobs that will be cut this summer will also be in Wichita.

In addition, Cessna is discontinuing its Columbus business jets built in Wichita.