Search Continues Storms over the area

Press Releases
From: Fremont County Sheriff's Office
Monday, November 1, 2010

MEDIA ADVISORY at 10:00 AM MT

(Lander, WY) – Fully one week after a light airplane with four members of a Minnesota family on board went off of radar over the rugged Wind River Mountains of northwest Wyoming, search organizers today are sending two more ground teams into the field and four more aircraft.

The Incident Command staff overseeing the search and rescue mission met until late last night pouring over all search routes and data secured from the previous six days of search operations. A plan based on that review was formulated early today and the plan is now being initiated.

“Today we are going to concentrate on clearing the areas of highest probability, including an area just west of the aircraft’s last known radar contact,” said Operations Chief Jason Aanestad. “We are continuing to work on pinpointing the source of an elusive emergency transponder signal (ELT) that is reverberating in the area, as well.”

All previous attempts to determine the location of a presumed emergency signal with the use of highly sophisticated air and ground detection equipment has frustrated rescuers. Today, two specialized aircraft with detection equipment on board will resume the search. Both are fixed winged-aircraft, one from the Wyoming Civil Air Patrol and the second from the Park County (WY) Search and Rescue Team. In addition, two helicopters will continue searching in a grid pattern, again in the area of highest probability based on radar data.

Since initiation of the search after the aircraft disappeared from radar in a snowstorm one week ago this afternoon, numerous air and ground search efforts have been launched in an attempt to find clues to the missing plane. As of today, no physical evidence of the 1977 model Mooney aircraft has been found.