Doesn't look good. Sorry OP!
A plane that appeared to have smashed into a cliff near Payson may be the Piper single-engine aircraft that went missing from Mesa's Falcon Field Airport on Thursday.
Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration's Western-Pacific Region, said Saturday that the Civil Air Patrol spotted the wreckage from the air.
FAA and Gila County Sheriff's Office officials said the wreckage, which is about 15 miles northwest of Payson, appears to be "fresh."
Air patrol officials reported that the plane "impacted a cliff wall," Gregor said in an email. It's unclear if there are any survivors.
Melissa Kennedy, a dispatcher with the Gila County Sheriff's Office substation in Payson, said the wreckage is located in remote area at the upper end of a canyon that Fossil Creek runs through, which she believes is in the Tonto National Forest.
Ground crews are hiking into the area, which would take most of the day, she said. She said they expected to reach the site of the wreck by evening.
"(It's) a pretty steep canyon," she said.
Gregor confirmed reports that some of the three passengers are from the Netherlands, but authorities have not released names.
The aircraft, owned by a Canadian flight school CAE Global Academy, went missing after leaving Falcon Field at 2:20 p.m. Thursday.
Company spokeswoman Nathalie Bourque, who flew to Arizona Saturday morning, said she would have no new information until sometime on Saturday afternoon.
"As you can imagine these are difficult times," she said. "We're all trying to do our best."
Allen Kenitzer, an FAA spokesman, said the pilot planned to stop in Payson before landing in Winslow at 4:20 p.m.
The flight school that operates the aircraft reported the plane overdue several hours later.
Civil Air Patrol Col. Bob Ditch said five aircraft had been searching for the plane. Crews were scouring the area where where the plane was last tracked on radar and where cell phone records last placed the passenger's phones.
Ditch said Friday search flights over the area had not been able to pick up any emergency locator beacon.
Read more:
http://www.azcentral.com/community/...age-mesa-missing-plane-brk.html#ixzz26ZYPzCIU
