Expanded Search Fails to Find Any Sign of Pilot

Civil air patrols searched Monday from Santa Barbara to Long Beach and inland to the Antelope Valley for a retired Army lieutenant colonel who disappeared in his plane Friday night.

Norman Jackson, 40, of Northridge was last seen Friday about 5:30 p.m. after he rented a white, red and blue single-engine Cessna 170 at Van Nuys Airport, said Lt. Col. Bob Fowler, Civil Air Patrol public affairs officer.

Jackson had not filed a flight plan, but had more than 2,500 hours of flying time as an Army officer and a private pilot, Fowler said.

Jackson, a father of five and a Vietnam veteran, had said he would return from his flight by midnight, Fowler said.

“He told his wife he’d be back sometime late in the evening, oh, about midnight, so she went to sleep,” Fowler said. “In the morning she woke up, and he wasn’t there.”

She alerted the Van Nuys Airport early Saturday and by 3 p.m., seven air patrol units and five ground teams were searching for Jackson, Fowler said. By Sunday, 90 people were involved in the search. The air units patrolled about 14,000 miles in their effort, Fowler said.

Along the Coast

Jackson’s friends said he enjoyed flying along the coast, so the air patrols have concentrated their search there, Fowler said. Ground crews have been listening to tapes of pilots’ communications with air traffic controllers to see if Jackson tried to fly into restricted air space, Fowler said.

His rented plane, which carried enough fuel for about three hours in the air, was equipped with an electronic locator transmitter, which can indicate a crash-landing and an approximate location, Fowler said.

Jackson, who worked with the Army Corps of Engineers, reinstated his private pilot’s license in March and had accumulated 190 hours of flying time, Fowler said. Forty hours of flying is required for a pilot’s license.

Ground patrols also will begin contacting ranger stations all over the state, Fowler said.

“We’ll continue until we either find him or the Air Force tells us to call it off,” Fowler said.