Local News in Brief : No Sign of Missing Pilot
Rescue crews searching for a pilot missing for more than a week checked the sites of old plane crashes in the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountain ranges near Banning Pass but found no sign of the missing man, officials said.
Pilots have flown more than 30,000 miles and covered 10,600 square miles in their search for William E. Dempsey and his twin-engine Britton Norman Islander, Civil Air Patrol Lt. Col. Frank Burnham said.
Burnham said 12 planes took off Monday from Fox Airport in Lancaster, investigating what appeared to be old wrecks in the mountains on the chance that one of them might prove to be the wreckage of the missing man’s plane.
Dempsey, 40, flying for the Southern Cross Aviation Co. of Van Nuys, was believed to be the only person aboard the missing eight-passenger aircraft when it took off Oct. 31 from El Paso, Tex., to Santa Paula Airport in Ventura County.
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