Search Suspended for Missing Calif. Plane With 2 Aboard

Civil Air Patrol concluded its operations Monday morning in the search for a missing aircraft with two persons on board in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

The search was suspended by the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office at 9 p.m. Sunday. The aircraft has not been found.

The Socata TB-20 Trinidad took off April 17 from the Truckee-Tahoe Airport in Truckee, California, and never arrived at its intended destination, Petaluma Municipal Airport. CAPl was activated for the search shortly after midnight Tuesday by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.

Aerial assets from the California Highway Patrol and California National Guard also participated in the multi-agency search, as did ground teams from CAP and multiple agencies. The search was conducted in a unified command in support of the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office.

Throughout the six-day search, CAP aircrews from California and Nevada conducted visual and photographic searches while logging more than 60 flight hours over the rugged, heavily wooded, snow-covered search area 18 miles northwest of Truckee.

CAP volunteers on the ground reviewed more than 8,000 high-resolution digital images of the search area, which were captured by wing-mounted cameras on the CAP search planes.

Five Civil Air Patrol search planes from California launched Saturday morning in the continuing search for a missing aircraft in the Sierra Nevada mountain range with two people aboard.

CAP, along with the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard, continues to assist the Sierra and Nevada County sheriffs’ offices in the search.

The five CAP planes, flown by aircrews from California, are conductingvisual and photographic searches of an area in the Sierra Nevadas about 18 miles northwest of Truckee. Aircraft from both the Highway Patrol and Air National Guard were also in the air. Multiple agencies are participating in the ground search.

CAP aircraft have conducted over 60 hours of aerial search and will continue as long as requested.

“We are extremely disappointed in the outcome of this search,” said Maj. Shane Terpstra, CAP incident commander. “We always hope for a fast resolution with missing aircraft searches, but rapidly changing weather compounded with fresh snow worked against us this entire search. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.”

Nearly 120 CAP volunteers, 15 CAP aircraft and 12 CAP vehicles participated in the search.