An Oregon Army National Guard helicopter was sent out this morning to help search for Vancouver pilot Lee C. Leslie, 41, and his Piper PA-28. Around 1 p.m. searchers spotted a crashed plane on Mount Tom, a heavily forested area where they had concentrated the search, the Oregon Civil Air Patrol said.
The Federal Aviation Administration had tracked the plane’s flight path until the plane went off radar in the Mount Tom area, which is about nine miles east of Harrisburg, Ore., the air patrol said.
Searchers with the Linn County Sheriff’s Office went out to the crash site and found a dead body among the wreckage. The body and the plane haven’t been positively identified yet, the sheriff’s office said.
“Everything indicates that this was more than likely the plane that was missing, but we can’t confirm that at this point,” Sheriff Bruce Riley said.
The Linn County Medical Examiner’s Office will confirm the body’s identity and determine cause of death.
Plane crashes are not uncommon in Linn County, which is mountainous in some areas and has several small airports and airstrips, Riley said.
Around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Leslie took off from Hobby Field in Creswell, Ore., which is about 120 miles from Vancouver. After the plane was reported overdue Tuesday night, airport managers at airports along the flight path were called and asked to do a ramp search to look for the tail number of the plane in question, said air patrol Vice Commander Ted Tanory.
The Lane County Sheriff’s Office filed a missing person report and began working with Oregon Civil Air Patrol to find the pilot and his plane. Three aircraft search crews were looking for damaged or burned foliage, indicating where a plane might have crashed.
Leslie is believed to be the only person who was on board the silver and red aircraft that was bound for Vancouver’s Pearson Field. The pilot didn’t file a flight plan, the FAA said, nor was he required to do so.
Willy Williamson, manager at Pearson Field, said Leslie never made contact with him, anyone else at the airport or Aero Maintenance, which holds a flight school at the airport. He met Leslie a few months ago and said Leslie was relatively new to the airport.
Leslie’s Piper PA-28 is one of the most common private planes in the world, designed to be safe and easy to fly, Williamson said.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause of the crash.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Linn County sheriff's office says searchers looking for a missing small plane have found wreckage and a body in the foothills of the Cascade Range.
The sheriff's office says in a statement that it hasn't been able yet to make positive identifications at the site in the Coburg Hills just east of Interstate 5 in southern Linn County.
The site is on Mount Tom, a 3,170-foot peak.
The wreckage was pinpointed Friday morning by an Oregon Army National Guard helicopter.
The missing pilot is 41-year-old Lee Leslie of Vancouver, Washington. He took off from Hobby Field south of Eugene in a single-engine plane Tuesday evening.
It disappeared from radar about 15 minutes later.
The airfield is at Cresswell. The crash site is about 20 miles northeast.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN 6) — It has been more than 48 hours since a Vancouver father’s plane went missing somewhere over Oregon or Washington, and Thursday night KOIN 6 News found out it appears the man doesn’t have a current license to fly.
The Oregon Civil Air Patrol continued its search efforts to find 41-year-old Lee Leslie’s plane on Thursday. The man is described as 5-feet-10, 180 pounds and was last seen wearing a red polo shirt and light colored pants. He is the only confirmed person on board the plane.
After extensive searching, KOIN 6 News could not find a current pilot license registered to Leslie’s name. He also had his driver’s license suspended due to a lengthy criminal traffic history.
The plane, a single engine Piper PA-28 Cherokee, is not registered with the FAA. CAP officials said they received a weak emergency signal Thursday within the search area, south of the Aurora State Airport and closer to Eugene. They sent a plane and ground searchers to the area, but did not find anything.
“We are looking for broken tree tops, any signs of an airplane or anything that does not belong where we sit,” Richard Richmond said.
Richmond, one of the searchers with CAP, said what makes this case so difficult, is that there is no record of any communication with Leslie during this flight.
“It’s hard to understand why we are not seeing anything in the valley here,” Richmond said.
The single engine Piper PA-28 Cherokee left Hobby Field in Creswell around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oregon CAP said. It was supposed to land at the Pearson Air Park in Vancouver, Washington but was reported missing Tuesday evening.
Oregon CAP has three aircraft and 15 people involved in the search.
“The FAA radar had him on track for a period of time and then he dropped off radar,” Lt. Col.Ted Tanory said. KOIN 6 News learned the last known spot was over a heavily forested area that was on the original flight path.
“We will continue searching as long as we possibly can as long, as we can safely keep our planes in the air,” he said.
http://koin.com
Lee Leslie, seen in an undated photo, was last seen leaving the Creswell airport on his way to Vancouver on April 21, 2015
(Courtesy photo)
AURORA, Ore. (KOIN) — The missing single-engine aircraft that left Creswell for Vancouver is a plane that is often used for training, said aviation expert Tom Young.
The Piper PA-28 Cherokee is “a very common trainer,” he told KOIN 6 News. “It’s probably been around for 50 years. It’s a safe design, depends on the maintenance how well it was kept up, possibly.”
Young, an airline pilot for 27 years who also served nine years in the Air Force Reserve, said many people “own them as their own personal airplanes and fly them for years, kind of like a second car.”
“It’s rare,” he said, “that you get to a spot where somebody just disappears.”
The Piper Cherokee left Hobby Field in Creswell around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Oregon Civil Air Patrol said. It was supposed to land at the Pearson Air Park in Vancouver, Washington but was reported missing Tuesday evening.
Three aircraft and 15 people from the Oregon CAP are searching for the plane, whose only known passenger was the pilot.
The pilot was identified as Lee Cheshire Leslie, 41, from Vancouver. The 5-feet-10, 180 pound white man was last seen wearing a red polo shirt and light colored pants.
Lt. Col. Ted Tanory said that they had no new leads as to what happened to the plane.
“The FAA radar had him on track for a period of time and then he dropped off radar,” he said. KOIN 6 News learned the last known spot was over a heavily forested area that was on the original flight path.
“We are of course concentrating the search in that area,” said Tanory.
Late Thursday afternoon, CAP officials told KOIN 6 News they received a weak emergency signal within the search area, south of the Aurora State Airport and closer to Eugene.
However, officials cautioned they often get false alarms from these signals. They sent a plane to investigate that area.
At a press conference earlier Thursday, Tanory said there are two types of emergency signals – digital and analog. A digital burst would tell who it belongs to and provide a registration number. The older style sends an audible signal on an emergency frequency.
The signals – ELTs – must be maintained by the pilot or the plane owner. An ELT should have a battery life of about seven days, he said.
Searcher Richard Weichman said, “If we’re flying over woods, we’re looking for broken treetops or any sign of an airplane or anything that does not belong where we see it.”
There are many unknowns in the case.
Young said it’s possible “there was a medical issue, possibly a situation where they wanted to vanish. Possibly they had a mechanical (issue) and didn’t get a distress call off.”
If the plane was a rental, he said an inspection by a licensed mechanic is required every 100 flight hours. He added a pilot flying their own plane must have an annual inspection.
“Typically you get an initial license as a private pilot, and that’s 40 hours minimum mandatory. It’s usually a lot more than that,” he said. “Then every two years you take a refresher flight with a flight instructor.”
Original article can be found here: http://koin.com
Aviation expert Tom Young, April 23, 2015
Airplanes at the Aurora Airport, April 23, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment