FYI March11 MISSING PILOT Joe Radford - Grand Canyon Village

[MuttsMom]

A pilot saw an emergency beacon 2 days after Joe took off. They have searched over 600 miles and have found nothing. I'm assuming (I know, my bad) that the pilot who saw the emergency beacon, would know pretty close to where he saw it. What are the options of what happened if they searched a large area, including where the pilot saw the beacon, but found nothing? If this is a stupid question, I apologize, but mostly what I know is from going on rescue flights, and some of the equipment in the plane, but that's it.

[traunero]

Many parts of our country are vast areas of wilderness and other inhospitable terrain. It is much more difficult to spot a wrecked plane than many people realize.

[MuttsMom]

k, thanks. When it said they had searched, I thought that meant there was nothing. I would think it would be easier when a lot of the trees didn't have leaves and a bright red plane, but again, that's just me thinking. I guess the next step is having to search by ground vs air? I'm sure he didn't bring food with him, so it's not looking good it being over 2 weeks. Praying someone finds it soon.

[Liza007]

It is with great sadness that I post this link

http://www3.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brie ... 1958&key=1

The National Transportation and Safety Board posted this on 24 Mar 2011.

Whether or not that means that they are still looking, I don't know.

[admin]

It is with great sadness that I post this link
http://www3.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brie ... 1958&key=1
The National Transportation and Safety Board posted this on 24 Mar 2011.
Whether or not that means that they are still looking, I don't know.

Liz, from what I understand, this is standard operating procedure for the NTSB after a certain time frame has gone by. We may never know what happened, though I am hopeful that we will eventually have answers. Joe loved flying and loved flying rescue dogs. His brother told me this morning that the search continues but with each passing day, the searchers they send out become less in numbers so I assume they are still looking....this is very difficult for all who knew Joe, myself included...

Debi

[MuttsMom]

I plead stupid. What did that notice say besides when the plane went missing, Joe's name, no flight plan? I guess it's terminology I don't understand, but when it started with saying, it's with great sadness, I thought they had found him, but they haven't.

[MuttsMom]

Nevermind, I read it again and saw the one word that isn't what any of us in rescue wanted to see. Thanks for all the animals you saved Joe!

[Steve Foley]

It looks like the search will be called off after today.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... t0401.html

[Liza007]

A well written article as devastating as this news is.

Thank you for the update Steve.

Off topic in the rescue community here.. not many of these transports are "off the grid " I would believe that if Joe were flying a hound someone would know.

Damned shame
The whole thing just breaks my heart

[richclover]

A well written article as devastating as this news is.

Thank you for the update Steve.

Off topic in the rescue community here.. not many of these transports are "off the grid " I would believe that if Joe were flying a hound someone would know.

Damned shame
The whole thing just breaks my heart

Agreed, we hate to see these things happen. I just found out about this a couple of days ago. Seems if he was transporting a pup, the volunteers on each end of the flight would know something was amiss.

Hopefully he'll be found OK, but with each passing day, it's not looking good. Blue skies and tailwinds, Joe!