Date: 3/6/2009
By RACHEL JONES
Associated Press Writer
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan rescuers are still searching for a small plane flown by a U.S. missionary that vanished two weeks ago in the jungles of southern Venezuela, an official with the country’s civil aviation agency said Thursday.
Rescue coordinator Gilberto Gonzalez said officials called off aerial searches several days after the plane disappeared amid stormy weather on Feb. 16, but continue to work with as many as 80 indigenous volunteers who are searching the jungle for wreckage.
“We haven’t stopped looking,” Gonzalez said. “We’re waiting to hear from people on the ground, and trying to work with the resources that we have.”
Robert Norton, a 48-year-old missionary from Bryant, Alabama, had six passengers aboard, including his wife Neiba, missionary Gladis Zerpa, and two adults who were accompanying two sick children he was taking from a hospital to their villages in Venezuela’s remote southern state of Bolivar, said David Gates, a friend of the pilot.
Gates, who is president of Tennessee-based Gospel Ministries International, said the Bolivar state governor’s office loaned rescuers a helicopter, and that friends and family members had asked for help from the Canadian government, which has used its satellite system to track emergency signals from past plane crash sites.
Gates said Norton’s father, Elwin, was also a missionary who died while piloting a plane that crashed in Mexico 29 years ago.
“What makes this thing so painful is that his father was killed with his passengers when he went down in the jungle too,” Gates said. “His mother lost both her husband and a son the same way.”
Nytta Norton of Bryant, Alabama, said she doubted her son would be found alive, but that she trusted God to “see a bigger picture.”
“It’s as though the jungle has just swallowed them up,” she told The Associated Press. “I hope they’ll find them alive and OK. But it has been so long, the chance of that is pretty slim.”
Norton and his wife lived in a village outside the town of Santa Elena, a sparsely populated area of forests, grasslands and plateaus. He provided emergency medical transportation to remote indigenous villages for more than five years as director of Adventist Medical Aviation Venezuela, part of the McDonald, Tennessee-based Gospel Ministries that Gates runs.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
PUERTO RICO: Rough weather forces officials to suspend search for crash survivors
Date: 2/11/2009
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Strong winds and currents are forcing authorities to hold off a search for five people missing in a small plane crash off Puerto Rico’s coast.
The island’s emergency management director said Tuesday that the search will resume as soon as weather conditions permit. Heriberto Sauri has said that sharks in the area also have become an obstacle.
The remains of one man have been found.
The plane took off from the Dominican Republic and was headed to Puerto Rico with a pilot and five passengers when it crashed near the island’s northwest coast on Sunday.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Strong winds and currents are forcing authorities to hold off a search for five people missing in a small plane crash off Puerto Rico’s coast.
The island’s emergency management director said Tuesday that the search will resume as soon as weather conditions permit. Heriberto Sauri has said that sharks in the area also have become an obstacle.
The remains of one man have been found.
The plane took off from the Dominican Republic and was headed to Puerto Rico with a pilot and five passengers when it crashed near the island’s northwest coast on Sunday.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Missing plane’s pilot had only student license
Date: 12/17/2008
By DANICA COTO
Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The pilot of a plane that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle with 11 passengers aboard had only a U.S. student pilot license and should have never been allowed to fly, Dominican authorities said Wednesday.
Adriano Jimenez had been stripped of his Dominican license in 2006 because he was caught flying multiengine planes when he was only authorized to fly helicopters, said Pedro Dominguez, president of the Dominican Pilots Association. Two weeks ago, he had a minor accident while landing a small plane at a Dominican airport.
“An in-depth investigation was never opened to prevent what today we are lamenting,” Dominguez said.
Jimenez loaded 11 passengers onto a twin-engine plane in Santiago, Dominican Republic, on Monday and filed a flight plan for a landing in Mayaguana Island in the Bahamas, but he never arrived, according to the Dominican Civil Aviation Institute.
Jimenez sent an emergency signal about 35 minutes after takeoff and then disappeared from the radar. He was flying in low visibility over rough seas, according to U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Barry Bena.
U.S. Coast Guard crews suspended their search Wednesday night after scouring about 5,300 sq. miles (13,727 sq. kilometers) without turning up any sign of the plane or its passengers, said Guard spokesman Lt. Matt Moorlag in Miami.
The plane went missing in the Bermuda Triangle, a zone of the Atlantic Ocean noted for a supposedly high number of unexplained losses of small boats and aircraft.
The U.S. Coast Guard says the mysteries can usually be attributed to storms that flare up quickly and to swift, Gulf Stream currents that wash away evidence of wreckage.
“Overall, the U.S. Coast Guard is not impressed with supernatural explanations of disasters at sea,” Moorlag said.
The missing aircraft’s owner, Luis Perez of Puerto Rico, said he hired a pilot to fly the BN2A MK III Trislander to the Dominican Republic so that Jimenez, a potential buyer, could inspect it.
The pilot who was supposed to fly the plane with Jimenez at his side refused to do so when Jimenez arrived at the airport with 11 passengers, according to Luis Irizarry, an attorney for Perez’ company. He said Jimenez then took the plane himself without authorization.
Jimenez, 43, received a U.S. student pilot license in March, according to U.S. Federal Aviation Administration records.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By DANICA COTO
Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The pilot of a plane that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle with 11 passengers aboard had only a U.S. student pilot license and should have never been allowed to fly, Dominican authorities said Wednesday.
Adriano Jimenez had been stripped of his Dominican license in 2006 because he was caught flying multiengine planes when he was only authorized to fly helicopters, said Pedro Dominguez, president of the Dominican Pilots Association. Two weeks ago, he had a minor accident while landing a small plane at a Dominican airport.
“An in-depth investigation was never opened to prevent what today we are lamenting,” Dominguez said.
Jimenez loaded 11 passengers onto a twin-engine plane in Santiago, Dominican Republic, on Monday and filed a flight plan for a landing in Mayaguana Island in the Bahamas, but he never arrived, according to the Dominican Civil Aviation Institute.
Jimenez sent an emergency signal about 35 minutes after takeoff and then disappeared from the radar. He was flying in low visibility over rough seas, according to U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Barry Bena.
U.S. Coast Guard crews suspended their search Wednesday night after scouring about 5,300 sq. miles (13,727 sq. kilometers) without turning up any sign of the plane or its passengers, said Guard spokesman Lt. Matt Moorlag in Miami.
The plane went missing in the Bermuda Triangle, a zone of the Atlantic Ocean noted for a supposedly high number of unexplained losses of small boats and aircraft.
The U.S. Coast Guard says the mysteries can usually be attributed to storms that flare up quickly and to swift, Gulf Stream currents that wash away evidence of wreckage.
“Overall, the U.S. Coast Guard is not impressed with supernatural explanations of disasters at sea,” Moorlag said.
The missing aircraft’s owner, Luis Perez of Puerto Rico, said he hired a pilot to fly the BN2A MK III Trislander to the Dominican Republic so that Jimenez, a potential buyer, could inspect it.
The pilot who was supposed to fly the plane with Jimenez at his side refused to do so when Jimenez arrived at the airport with 11 passengers, according to Luis Irizarry, an attorney for Perez’ company. He said Jimenez then took the plane himself without authorization.
Jimenez, 43, received a U.S. student pilot license in March, according to U.S. Federal Aviation Administration records.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
GUYANA: Officials suspend search for missing US survey plane with 3 aboard
Date: 11/18/2008
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyana has suspended its search for a U.S.-registered plane with three people aboard that disappeared over dense Amazonian jungle two weeks ago.
Transportation Minister Robeson Benn says government teams have unsuccessfully scoured mountainous forests near the Venezuelan border to find the Beechcraft King Air plane that was conducting aerial surveys for a Canadian mining company.
American pilots James Barker and Chris Paris and Canadian technician Patrick Murphy were doing uranium survey work for Prometheus Resources Guyana Inc., a subsidiary of U308 Corporation of Toronto, Canada, when the plane went missing.
Benn said Monday that the plane’s owners planned to continue limited ground searches.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyana has suspended its search for a U.S.-registered plane with three people aboard that disappeared over dense Amazonian jungle two weeks ago.
Transportation Minister Robeson Benn says government teams have unsuccessfully scoured mountainous forests near the Venezuelan border to find the Beechcraft King Air plane that was conducting aerial surveys for a Canadian mining company.
American pilots James Barker and Chris Paris and Canadian technician Patrick Murphy were doing uranium survey work for Prometheus Resources Guyana Inc., a subsidiary of U308 Corporation of Toronto, Canada, when the plane went missing.
Benn said Monday that the plane’s owners planned to continue limited ground searches.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Calif. hiker finds ID that appears to be Fossett’s
Date: 10/2/2008 2:29 AM
By TRACIE CONE and JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press Writers
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. (AP) _ Preston Morrow was having a little adventure, wandering off-trail alone to look for a remote mine. He was scrambling down a rugged embankment Monday when he noticed some brittle, weathered identification cards scattered among the decomposing pine needles.
“JAMES STEPHEN FOSSETT,” a pilot license read.
As in Steve Fossett, who circumnavigated the globe by himself in 2002 and vanished on a solo flight in a small plane more than a year ago. The subject of untold fruitless hours of searching by teams armed with high-tech equipment and NASA-designed software.
Didn’t ring a bell.
“I have to admit the name didn’t pop into my head,” Morrow said. It wasn’t until Tuesday, when he discussed his find with co-workers at a Mammoth Lakes sporting goods store, that he realized what he might be holding.
“Oh my gosh, this is going to be huge,” Morrow remembers thinking.
A picture of the pilot license — including a certificate number and Fossett’s date of birth — was sent to the Federal Aviation Administration and matched the agency’s records, spokesman Ian Gregor said.
“We’re trying to determine the authenticity of the document,” Gregor said.
The discovery sparked a renewed search effort that resulted in the sighting by air later Wednesday of what appeared to be wreckage.
Erica Stuart, spokeswoman for the Madera County Sheriff’s Office, said a ground team was en route to the site Wednesday night, and they hope to confirm Thursday whether there is wreckage and whether it belongs to Fossett.
The intial find fired gave the widow and friends of the millionaire adventurer renewed hope.
“I am hopeful that this search will locate the crash site and my husband’s remains,” Peggy Fossett said in a statement Wednesday. “I am grateful to all of those involved in this effort.”
Morrow, an avid outdoorsman who moved to Mammoth Lakes to be closer to the mountain slopes he had skied since childhood, was west of the Sierra Nevada town when he found IDs with Fossett’s name and some scattered cash — 10 $100 bills and a $5 bill.
Fossett disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February following a search for the famed aviator that covered 20,000 square miles.
Aviators had flown over Mammoth Lakes, about 90 miles south of the ranch, in the search, but it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane. The most intense searching was concentrated well north of the town, given what searchers knew about sightings of Fossett’s plane, his plans for when he had intended to return and the amount of fuel he had in the plane.
Search teams led by the Madera County Sheriff’s Department began combing through the loose, rugged terrain Wednesday looking for the airplane wreckage. An air effort was expected to be under way soon, said Madera County sheriff’s spokeswoman Erica Stuart.
Morrow said he found no human remains or signs of the plane when he hiked back out to the mountain slope Tuesday with his wife and three friends.
While standing on a ridge about 100 yards from where the documents were first seen, Morrow’s wife, Natalie, found a black fleece sweat shirt, Nautica brand, size XL.
“It looked like it had been there a while — it was faded out quite a bit,” Natalie Morrow said. She left the sweat shirt, but gathered GPS coordinates to guide authorities to the site.
“I’m hoping the family can know exactly what happened, so they can have some kind of closure,” she said.
Preston Morrow had wanted to contact Fossett’s family first, so he consulted local attorney David Baumwohl, and together they tried to get through to lawyers representing the missing adventurer’s kin.
“We figured if it was us, we’d want to know first. We wouldn’t want to learn from the news,” Baumwohl said.
When they did not hear back by Wednesday morning, they decided to turn everything over to the police, the attorney said.
The California Civil Air Patrol and private planes from Hilton’s ranch previously had flown over the area, but it is “extremely rough country,” said Joe Sanford, undersheriff in Lyon County, Nev., which was involved in the initial search.
Mammoth Lakes is at an elevation of more than 7,800 feet on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, where peaks top 13,000 feet. This year’s biggest search for Fossett focused on Nevada’s Wassuk Range, more than 50 miles north of Mammoth Lakes. That search ended last month.
One of Fossett’s friends reacted to Wednesday’s news with cautious optimism.
If the belongings turn out to be authentic, then that could help narrow the search area for possible wreckage, said Ray Arvidson, a scientist at Washington University who worked on Fossett’s past balloon flights.
“It would be nice to get closure,” Arvidson said.
Fossett made a fortune trading futures and options on Chicago markets. He gained worldwide fame for more than 100 attempts and successes in setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July 2007.
He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman Triathlon, competed in the Iditarod dog sled race and climbed some of the world’s best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
___
Juliana Barbassa reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Jason Dearen and Malia Wollan in San Francisco, Scott Sonner in Reno, Nev., Tom Tait in Las Vegas, and Alicia Chang and Jacob Adelman in Los Angeles also contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary
By TRACIE CONE and JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press Writers
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. (AP) _ Preston Morrow was having a little adventure, wandering off-trail alone to look for a remote mine. He was scrambling down a rugged embankment Monday when he noticed some brittle, weathered identification cards scattered among the decomposing pine needles.
“JAMES STEPHEN FOSSETT,” a pilot license read.
As in Steve Fossett, who circumnavigated the globe by himself in 2002 and vanished on a solo flight in a small plane more than a year ago. The subject of untold fruitless hours of searching by teams armed with high-tech equipment and NASA-designed software.
Didn’t ring a bell.
“I have to admit the name didn’t pop into my head,” Morrow said. It wasn’t until Tuesday, when he discussed his find with co-workers at a Mammoth Lakes sporting goods store, that he realized what he might be holding.
“Oh my gosh, this is going to be huge,” Morrow remembers thinking.
A picture of the pilot license — including a certificate number and Fossett’s date of birth — was sent to the Federal Aviation Administration and matched the agency’s records, spokesman Ian Gregor said.
“We’re trying to determine the authenticity of the document,” Gregor said.
The discovery sparked a renewed search effort that resulted in the sighting by air later Wednesday of what appeared to be wreckage.
Erica Stuart, spokeswoman for the Madera County Sheriff’s Office, said a ground team was en route to the site Wednesday night, and they hope to confirm Thursday whether there is wreckage and whether it belongs to Fossett.
The intial find fired gave the widow and friends of the millionaire adventurer renewed hope.
“I am hopeful that this search will locate the crash site and my husband’s remains,” Peggy Fossett said in a statement Wednesday. “I am grateful to all of those involved in this effort.”
Morrow, an avid outdoorsman who moved to Mammoth Lakes to be closer to the mountain slopes he had skied since childhood, was west of the Sierra Nevada town when he found IDs with Fossett’s name and some scattered cash — 10 $100 bills and a $5 bill.
Fossett disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February following a search for the famed aviator that covered 20,000 square miles.
Aviators had flown over Mammoth Lakes, about 90 miles south of the ranch, in the search, but it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane. The most intense searching was concentrated well north of the town, given what searchers knew about sightings of Fossett’s plane, his plans for when he had intended to return and the amount of fuel he had in the plane.
Search teams led by the Madera County Sheriff’s Department began combing through the loose, rugged terrain Wednesday looking for the airplane wreckage. An air effort was expected to be under way soon, said Madera County sheriff’s spokeswoman Erica Stuart.
Morrow said he found no human remains or signs of the plane when he hiked back out to the mountain slope Tuesday with his wife and three friends.
While standing on a ridge about 100 yards from where the documents were first seen, Morrow’s wife, Natalie, found a black fleece sweat shirt, Nautica brand, size XL.
“It looked like it had been there a while — it was faded out quite a bit,” Natalie Morrow said. She left the sweat shirt, but gathered GPS coordinates to guide authorities to the site.
“I’m hoping the family can know exactly what happened, so they can have some kind of closure,” she said.
Preston Morrow had wanted to contact Fossett’s family first, so he consulted local attorney David Baumwohl, and together they tried to get through to lawyers representing the missing adventurer’s kin.
“We figured if it was us, we’d want to know first. We wouldn’t want to learn from the news,” Baumwohl said.
When they did not hear back by Wednesday morning, they decided to turn everything over to the police, the attorney said.
The California Civil Air Patrol and private planes from Hilton’s ranch previously had flown over the area, but it is “extremely rough country,” said Joe Sanford, undersheriff in Lyon County, Nev., which was involved in the initial search.
Mammoth Lakes is at an elevation of more than 7,800 feet on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, where peaks top 13,000 feet. This year’s biggest search for Fossett focused on Nevada’s Wassuk Range, more than 50 miles north of Mammoth Lakes. That search ended last month.
One of Fossett’s friends reacted to Wednesday’s news with cautious optimism.
If the belongings turn out to be authentic, then that could help narrow the search area for possible wreckage, said Ray Arvidson, a scientist at Washington University who worked on Fossett’s past balloon flights.
“It would be nice to get closure,” Arvidson said.
Fossett made a fortune trading futures and options on Chicago markets. He gained worldwide fame for more than 100 attempts and successes in setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July 2007.
He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman Triathlon, competed in the Iditarod dog sled race and climbed some of the world’s best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
___
Juliana Barbassa reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Jason Dearen and Malia Wollan in San Francisco, Scott Sonner in Reno, Nev., Tom Tait in Las Vegas, and Alicia Chang and Jacob Adelman in Los Angeles also contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary