San Diego
The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search Friday for survivors of a small plane crash Wednesday five miles off the San Diego coast, because evidence from the wreckage did not indicate the possibility of survivors, a Coast Guard spokesman said.
Lt. David O’Brien, Coast Guard spokesman, said the search was halted Friday until new information becomes available on the possibility of survivors. Pilot Rick Mathews, 55; his wife, Pat, and their daughter, Susan, all of Fullerton, were believed to have been aboard the downed aircraft.
The Coast Guard recovered a wing, seat, headrest and curtains from the aircraft. A sweater and a pair of tennis shoes were also found around the wreckage, O’Brien said.
“There is no evidence that there would be survivors,” O’Brien said. “But we can’t rule out the possibility of survivors until we find bodies.”
The plane disappeared Wednesday from the radar screens of Federal Aviation Administration officials at Miramar Naval Air Station, who were in radio contact with the plane before it vanished.
The pilot of the Saratoga Piper PA32, after making an initial pass over Lindbergh Field, indicated that he might return to Fullerton because of the low visibility in dense fog in San Diego, O’Brien said.
After Mathews radioed his decision to return to Fullerton, he vanished from air traffic controllers’ radar screens, O’Brien said.
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