Air Search Narrows for Missing Plane

The Civil Air Patrol changed the course of its search Tuesday in an effort to track down a missing former Army officer who took off in his rented plane Friday night.

Retired Lt. Col. 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, a Civil Air Patrol public affairs officer.

Fowler said the air patrol discovered a form on Jackson’s desk in his Northridge office that indicated that the experienced pilot and Vietnam veteran may have intended to fly to Palm Springs.

On the form, commonly used by pilots, Fowler had marked his destination as “P.S., 106 degrees,” Fowler said. He was referring to a bearing to Palm Springs, Fowler said.

“This puts a new light on things,” Fowler said. “For the first time, we’ve got something that would indicate something like a route.”

Patrols plan to fly along specific routes to Palm Springs and to Bakersfield and Oxnard, other cities mentioned in the note, rather than flying in a grid pattern over all of Southern California, Fowler said.

“A guy who’s going to work out a flight plan will make these little notes as he goes along,” Fowler said.

Although there is no requirement to file a specific flight plan with the FAA on local flights, it is recommended that pilots do so, Fowler said. Investigators said Jackson had not submitted a plan.