Hope Dims for 4 Missing a Week on S.D.-Bound Plane

Hope dimmed Wednesday that four San Diegans aboard a twin-engine plane that disappeared near the California-Oregon border might have survived when ground searchers reported that sightings of a dog that had been aboard the craft proved to be false.

The aircraft, piloted by Jesse Terry of Hillsboro, Ore., and San Diego, was last seen July 22 when Terry, his wife and two San Diego passengers, Clint Reed, 26, and Gregory Szego, 34, left from Medford, Ore., bound for San Diego. A German shepherd dog also was aboard.

Jim Holden, assistant administrator in the Oregon state Division of Aeronautics, said Wednesday that reports of sightings Tuesday of the dog in the general area where the plane is believed to have gone down were checked and proved to be false.

Holden said, however, that seven or eight Civil Air Patrol aircraft would continue their search on the Oregon side of the border and 12 California search planes also were flying missions over the heavily wooded, sparsely populated border area.

False Wreckage Report

Earlier, air searchers had spotted what they thought was a piece of plane wreckage near the Klamath River northeast of Eureka, on the California side of the border, a CAP spokeswoman said, but the object turned out to be light reflecting from a log, she said.

The last contact with the plane was a radar tracking after it left Medford July 22, after a layover there because of stormy weather. Faint signals from an aircraft distress transmitter were heard as late as last Sunday in the wooded border area.

Terry, his wife, Enilo, and Szego left Hillsboro July 21 in Terry’s twin-engine Aero Commander, stopped in Eugene, Ore. to pick up Reed, who had been visiting relatives there, and then landed in Medford where they stayed until the evening of July 22 because of bad weather.

Val Hess, editor of the Hillsboro Argus newspaper, said that Terry was a retired auto dealer and an experienced pilot who bought the Aero Commander more than two years ago and had made the San Diego-Hillsboro flight frequently.