And Andrei Postelnicu’s fiancé was supposed to be here with him on his Pilots Paradise adventure, but her schooling and work in the United Kingdom intervened, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Christine Christofek.
Now the grief stricken woman, who doesn’t want to be identified, is on hand as searchers continue trying to find Postelnicu and the wreckage. The small downed rental airplane is presumed to be at the bottom of the ocean in a 29-square-mile area off Nettles Island in southern St. Lucie County.
The pilot, who turned 37 on Jan. 31, was a journalist and financial analyst whose parents live in Romania, Christofek said.
His last known radio transmission placed him about 15 miles south of Fort Pierce and about 450 miles up in the air, under thick, low-lying clouds in the early evening. He was supposed to land in the Vero Beach area by 7:50 p.m. Feb. 7.
On Sunday the Martin County Sheriff’s Office is working with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office on bringing in water-penetrating sonar and boats to find the wreckage. High winds and rough seas have been clouding the water, obscuring the vision of Civil Air Patrol pilots. That agency suspended its five-day search at 10 p.m. Feb. 12. The agency had about 25 people and five aircraft working on the search in the air and on the beaches.
Some wreckage has washed ashore: a backpack with the pilot’s license in it and small metal pieces of the airplane, a Piper PA-28 registered to Fishe Flying Corp.
According to the Florida Division of Corporations, that company is based at the Indian River Aerodrome, a private fly-in residential subdivision with a grass landing strip southwest of Vero Beach. The company operates as Pilots Paradise, a business that advertises online as a service that pilots may use to go on flying adventures using a company airplane and housing in Indian River County.
It primarily caters to European pilots. Postelnicu’s pilot’s license allowed him reciprocal flying privileges in the United States, according to the Civil Air Patrol.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday will help search ocean waters off Martin County for a missing plane and its pilot.
Marine units with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office continued the search Saturday but have been hampered by strong winds and rough seas, a spokeswoman said.
Authorities have been looking for United Kingdom resident Andrei Postelnicu, 37, and his rental plane since it crashed Feb. 7 off the coast of Stuart while en route to Vero Beach from the Florida Keys.
So far, they have found an 8-10-inch piece of the plane that contained part of the identification number that links it to the Piper aircraft, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Christine Christofek.
“The conditions for the search since we started have been challenging,” she said. “The winds are high. The waves are high. It has been difficult.”
On Sunday, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office “will assist us with some sonar equipment, which might be the best-case scenario,” Cristofek said.
The Coast Guard suspended its search two days ago and rough seas cut short search efforts Friday. Officials have been searching 25 square nautical miles — about 29 miles — off Nettles Island between the St. Lucie Inlet and a mile north into St. Lucie County.
Postelnicu’s fiancée arrived in Stuart two days ago from the United Kingdom and has been relaying information to his parents in Romania, Cristofek said.
Strong winds across the ocean are “blowing up the muck from the bottom so it’s very hard to see,” she said. “But the sheriff has (marine units) out because he wants closure for this family.”
Martin County officials are still treating it as a missing persons case, not a plane crash, Cristofek said.
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Jurnalistul român Andrei Postelnicu a fost dat dispărut vineri, 7 februarie 2014, după ce avionul pe care-l pilota s-a prăbușit în Oceanul Pacific, în sudul statului american Florida.
Jurnalistul Andrei Postelnicu, originar din Câmpulung Moldovenesc, care deținea cetăţenie britanică, pilota un avion ce a dispărut în Martin County încă de vineri. Autoritățile americane au găsit rucsacul lui Postelnicu și actele de identitate, dar nici urmă de cadavru și epava avionului. Șansele ca românul să mai fie î viață, sunt minime.
Andrei Postelnicu a lucrat pentru Financial Times intre 2000 si 2006 si pentru Bloomberg intre 2006 si 2007. A fost editorialist la Evenimentul zilei și la Capital, corespondent în SUA pentru Realitatea TV și consultant al politicianului Mircea Geoana.
În prezent, Andrei Postelnicu era vicepreşedinte asistent la Financial Institutions Research at Moody’s Investors Service. În trecut a fost director de cercetare la Campden Wealth, consultant independent şi colaborator la Foreign Policy Magazine.
Andrei Postelnicu a fost consilier şef la biroul lui Mircea Geoană în perioada în care acesta a fost preşedintele Senatului.
În România a lucrat ca jurnalist la Evenimentul Zilei şi Capital, el fiind şi colaborator la BBC, RFI şi Realitatea TVC.
Demisie din TVR după numai câteva luni. Andrei Postelnicu a fost și consilier al directorului TVR Info, în 2011, însă și-a dat demisia duă doar două luni, la solicitarea directorului TVR, Alexandru Lăzescu.
http://www.exclusivnews
STUART, Fla. —Two small pieces of a missing plane were found on a Treasure Coast beach.
Martin County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Christine Weiss said Tuesday the debris is believed to be from a small plane that vanished Friday evening.
Members of the Civil Air Patrol spent Tuesday afternoon in the air along the coast between Fort Pierce and Stuart searching for the missing plane. Lt. Col. David Littlefield said his team spotted some debris and asked a nearby boater to check it out.
"We called on (a boater) on the way to the Bahamas and he diverted course," Littlefield said. "We contacted the sailboat on marine frequency ... turned out to be just some cardboard, nothing related to the mission at hand."
Andrei Postelnicu, a resident of the United Kingdom, leased a Piper PA-28 single-engine plane in Vero Beach, where he was vacationing. He flew to Marathon and was scheduled to return Friday evening, but he never arrived.
Postelnicu's boot and backpack were found on a Martin County beach Sunday.
The search is expected to resume Wednesday.
"There's always hope," Maj. Joseph Tomasone said. "Everything that we find leads us to more hope."
Read more: http://www.wpbf.com
The Civil Air Patrol has announced that they are suspending their air search for a Piper PA-28 single engine aircraft that went missing Friday night.
The aircraft was piloted by Andrei Postelnicu, 37, of Romania.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office said it will continue searching for Postelnicu, a journalist and financial analyst who lives in the United Kingdom.
According to a sheriff’s spokeswoman, Postelnicu was in Vero Beach on vacation to utilize a flying package that he purchased for his birthday. Postelnicu turned 37 on Jan. 31.
The search for Postelnicu’s plane has been extensive and has yielded little evidence of his whereabouts, according to the sheriff’s spokeswoman. Detectives have confirmed that small pieces of metal recovered along the beach over the past few days are pieces of the missing aircraft.
A backpack containing an ID and contents related to the missing pilot were found Sunday morning.
According to authorities, Postelnicu was scheduled to land in Vero Beach on Friday at 7:50 p.m. after departing from Marathon.
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MARTIN COUNTY, Fla.-- Search crews continued for the second day looking for a plane that crashed off of the St. Lucie Inlet.
The plane was headed from Marathon to Vero Beach Friday evening.
Authorities say the pilot, Andrei Postelnicu, of the United Kingdom, was the only person in the Piper PA-28 plane.
Authorities say Postelnicu leased the plane from a Treasure Coast company, Pilot's Paradise, and was returning to Vero Beach.
Martin County Sheriff William Snyder says Postelnicu was last heard on the radio asking for some kind of instructions.
Snyder says the plane likely crashed in about 50 feet of water.
The Martin County Sheriff's Office, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Civil Air Patrol have been searching by ground, air and in the water for the wreckage.
The debris field is about 5 miles in length along the coastline between where a shoe and book bag were found, making it difficult to pinpoint the wreckage.
If nothing is found on Sunday, Snyder says The Civil Air Patrol will use SONAR to search the ocean.
Postelnicu's significant other in England has been notified by authorities that his plane crashed.
All of the property found along the shore Sunday was discovered by beach walkers. That's why the Sheriff's Office is asking people to remain watchful.
If you see anything, you're asked to call 911.
http://www.wptv.com
STUART —A waterlogged backpack and a soaked shoe found some 20 miles apart are all authorities have to go on in their search for a Brit whose small plane vanished Friday night off the Treasure Coast.
Andrei Postelnicu, originally from Romania but now living in London, had rented a Piper PA-28 single engine aircraft from a Vero Beach outfit and had flown it down to the Keys, and was returning Friday night from Marathon to Vero Beach when the plane “went off the radar,” Martin County Sheriff William Snyder told The Palm Beach Post Sunday evening by telephone.
Various agencies spent Sunday searching the coast without luck for Postelnicu, who the Civil Air Patrol said was the only person on board.
Snyder said a beachgoer did find a backpack Sunday morning in front of Beachwood Villas near the 2300 block of northeast Ocean Boulevard on Hutchinson Island that contained items belonging to Postelnicu. And Sunday afternoon, he said, a person on Jupiter Island found a shoe, UK size 42 — Postelnicu’s size.
Snyder urged anyone who found anything else that might be related to the plane or Postelnicu not to touch it, but to call the Martin sheriff’s office at 772-220-7170.
Postelnicu was in contact with towers in Stuart and West Palm Beach around 8 p.m. Friday, “the last we know anyone heard from him, unless the tower tells us more,” Snyder said. He said another pilot reported hearing Postelnicu on the radio discussing the weather “and the fact that it was dark. As far as we know, that pilot did not say if he (Postelnicu) sounded like he was in distress.”
Snyder said some fog was in the area at the time. He did not know if Postelnicu was rated for instrument flying.
“For some reason, there was a 24-hour delay” in reporting Postelnicu and the plane missing, Snyder said, and the search didn’t begin until 10 or 11 Saturday night. Assisting the sheriff’s office and Civil Air Patrol were the U.S. Coast Guard and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and Air Force Auxiliary.
Snyder said Postelnicu’s foreign pilot’s license did not give his age but he believed Postelnicu to be in his early 30s. He said the man’s girlfriend was flying from England.
“We can’t rule out the possibility that he’s alive, that he’s clinging to a piece of the plane somewhere. That’s our hope,” Snyder said. “But as the time drags on, the changes of finding him alive grow more dim.”
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