Search Halted for Pilot Missing Since Aug. 28 : Local News in Brief
The Civil Air Patrol suspended its search Thursday for a retired Army officer who was last seen Aug. 28 leaving Van Nuys Airport in a rented plane, a search official said.
Norman Jackson, 40, of Northridge, did not file a flight plan but was expected to return the same day, said Lt. Col. Bob Fowler, a Civil Air Patrol spokesman.
“We have covered every potential area, and some of them several times,” Fowler said.
A total of 125 aircraft spent 618 hours in the air searching routes that Jackson might have taken in the single-engine white Cessna 172 with blue and red trim, Fowler said. The 12-day search extended as far south as the Salton Sea and as far north as Santa Barbara, he said.
Jackson, an experienced pilot and decorated Vietnam veteran, recently had reinstated his private pilot’s license and is thought to have left Van Nuys Airport on a “proficiency and pleasure trip,” Fowler said.
The decision to suspend the search was made by the U.S. Air Force, Fowler said. The search is on hold indefinitely “until we get new leads,” he said.
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