CAWG searching for a missing Cessna twin engine

[vento]

According to a press release very early this morning...

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Civil Air Patrol Searching For Overdue Aircraft On Nevada to California Flight

Orange County, CA, January 20, 2010: Wednesday evening the California Wing of the Civil Air Patrol was activated by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center to search for an aircraft that is overdue on a flight from Henderson, Nevada to Compton, California.

According to information supplied to Incident Commander 1LT. Tolga Tarhan, the aircraft left Henderson Nevada on Monday and never arrived at the Compton Airport. Henderson is located about 13 miles southeast of Las Vegas.

The Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, Federal Aviation Administration, and CAP analysts used RADAR data to assist the Incident Commander in focusing the search to the most probable areas, and several Civil Air Patrol Ground Search And Rescue (GSAR) Teams are in the field Wednesday evening searching for any emergency signals near in the area of the last known RADAR contact.

Search aircraft and additional ground resources will be launched early in the morning to visually and electronically search.

The aircraft involved is a twin-engine Cessna 340. This type of aircraft is normally configured for a pilot and seating five passengers. This aircraft type is pressurized, has a maximum airspeed of 279 mph and can fly to an altitude of over 29,000 feet.

This is the second aircraft search that the California CAP has responded to this week. On Monday CAP aircraft and GSAR Teams located a crashed Cessna 172 in the Joshua Tree National Park and saved two people who had been trapped in the wreckage for 18 hours.

Contact 1LT. Matthew Scherzi at 714-497-####

#30#

Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with 58,000 members nationwide. CAP performs 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 91 lives in fiscal year 2008. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and counter-drug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the more than 23,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs. CAP has been performing missions for America for 68 years.

[heliodoc]

Pretty busy in that part of the globe that the last few days.

Maybe NESA MAS and MP school ought to be moved here and taught by the West Coast pros for a little while.

NESA could conceivably survive a 5 yr hitch and include all that practical mountain training there.

But being a part timer from that part of the world...flyin "ain't' for the faint hearted in some of those areas

[lordmonar]

I just got this from my Wing Ops Officer

RIALTO, Calif. (AP) - The Federal Aviation Administration says two people have been found dead in the wreckage of a plane that went missing earlier this week.  FAA Operations Officer Diana Joubert says the twin-engine Cessna 340 was found Thursday morning in the San Bernardino County foothills about five miles from the Rialto Municipal Airport.
The plane may have crashed on Monday, when it took off from Henderson, Nev., en route to Compton.  It was stormy that day but Joubert says it's unclear if weather played a role in the crash.  Sheriff's spokesman Cindy Beavers says a sheriff's helicopter found the wreckage shortly after midnight. The FAA says a Civil Air Patrol ground crew confirmed the wreckage around 2 a.m. and found that the pilot and lone passenger were dead.  Their names weren't immediately released.

[bosshawk]

From one of my sources in Socal, the freezing level was around 4500 feet in that area: be a darned good guess that weather was at least a contributing factor.  Cumulus granite is not to be fooled with.  Sorry about the two deaths.

[sparks]

The track line from departure to the intended destination passes in the vicinity of the crash site so the aircraft was on course just very low. Given the severe weather Southern California has been experiencing lately I agree it's a safe bet that weather played a part in the crash. The 340 is pressurized and should be able to handle some ice but boots don't always provide the needed protection, if they were being used.

[DG]

Pretty busy in that part of the globe that the last few days.

Maybe NESA MAS and MP school ought to be moved here and taught by the West Coast pros for a little while.

NESA could conceivably survive a 5 yr hitch and include all that practical mountain training there.

But being a part timer from that part of the world...flyin "ain't' for the faint hearted in some of those areas

At the risk of going off track for the thread,

What is standing in your way?

PAWG is doing their second annual week-long MAS this year.

At Willow Grove NAS.

NESA MAS in Indiana is more than supportive.  In fact NESA is proud of the fact that most of the instructors at the PA MAS are graduates and former instructor pilots at NESA MAS.  Some of the PAWG MAS instructor pilots instructed at NESA MAS for 8 years.

[calguy]

Photo of this crash and the Joshua Tree crash available at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/SARGuy76/10M00xx#