Searchers for Couple Spot Crashed Plane

The wreckage of a plane believed to have been occupied by a Simi Valley couple has been sighted on a steep, rugged slope of the Providence Mountains about 60 miles east of Barstow, the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday.

A plane fitting the description of the one sighted has been missing since April 17. It carried Annie Cadoret, 48, and her husband, Dollard (Dell) Cadoret, 55.

Captain Donald Belter, head of the Sheriff’s Department’s aviation division, said no one appeared to have survived the crash. No victims could be seen at the crash site, he said.

The wreckage was discovered by a search plane Monday in the Mitchell Caverns area. A helicopter got closer to the site Tuesday, but strong winds prevented it from approaching the wreckage, Belter said.

The Cadorets were reported missing a day after they left Bullhead City, Ariz., on a return trip to Whiteman Airport in Pacoima.

Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Stodelle said the plane’s identification number was not visible at the site. But the plane, a Piper Cherokee-140, was the same type flown by the Cadorets, and the wreckage was along the general route the couple would have taken, Stodelle said.

The wreckage was on a nearly vertical, rocky mountainside at the 5,000-foot level of a 5,996-foot peak, Stodelle said.

“It was just impaled by the mountain,” he said.

Rescue parties Wednesday morning plan to rappel to the wreckage from a ledge about 500 feet above the crash site, Stodelle said.

The Cadorets, both experienced pilots, and their 6-month-old poodle were reported missing by their daughter, Lynn Miller of Simi Valley, authorities said. It was not known who was flying the plane. The Cadorets were last heard from by radio at 10:10 a.m. April 17 and were scheduled to arrive at Whiteman Airport at 1 p.m. that day.

More than 100 searchers logged 271 hours of flying time, scouring 8,000 square miles during an eight-day search for the plane, said Major Peggy Beelby of the California Civil Air Patrol. The search was suspended for one day because of inclement weather.