Parents Plead for More Pilots in Plane Search : Aviation: The number of volunteers in hunt for missing Cessna has dwindled since craft disappeared last week on its way to Fullerton with five people aboard.

The parents of a young Placentia woman, missing with four others since their plane disappeared last week, pleaded Wednesday night for more pilots to join the search, and said they plan to fly the route themselves today.

“Obviously every day that goes by reduces their chances for survival,” said Don Erickson, the father of Natalie Erickson, 19.

The Ericksons plan to hold a press conference today to beg employers to give more time off to the volunteers who form the Civil Air Patrol. He said that while as many as 70 planes joined the search over the weekend, the number has dwindled to as few as a handful on some weekdays because of pressures for pilots to go back to work.

The search for the Fullerton-bound Cessna Skymaster, missing since Nov. 14, has been expanded into Mexico. On Wednesday, 10 planes continued the search for the aircraft carrying Jeff and Kathy Bird, ages 32 and 33; Jeff’s brother Brad, 33; pilot Richard Niemela, 27, of La Mirada, and Erickson.

The plane had left from Bullhead City, Ariz., and had to return in wind and rain that afternoon.

Erickson said he is hopeful because Niemela, his daughter’s boyfriend, “was an excellent pilot and a very clear-thinking person under stress and very cautious.”

He said Neimela was a flight instructor as well as an airplane mechanic employed by Bartlett Aviation in El Monte “who knows how to tear airplane engines down and put them back together.” He added, “There is no question in our mind he is not at fault for whatever’s happened.”

The Ericksons said at 2 p.m. today, they plan to fly the 70 miles between Banning Pass and Fullerton in a private plane that a friend is renting.

“Not knowing is the hardest,” said Pat Bird, mother of two men aboard the plane. “We want them found. We’re being upheld in prayer. . . . That has sustained us.”

The Birds have been caring for their grandsons, Brett, 5, and Tyler, 7, since the boys’ parents failed to arrive at Fullerton Municipal Airport last Thursday.

She said the children had been told Monday night that their parents and uncle are lost in the desert.

“The first thing they said was, ‘I hope Mommy and Daddy have water and are warm,’ ” Bird said.

Erickson said he is puzzled by several factors surrounding the plane’s disappearance.

“For one thing no one saw them leave Bullhead City,” he said. “Richard made a call to Prescott to get a weather update (the afternoon of Nov. 14). After that there is no record of any radio or telephone transmission.”

The search for the missing plane has concentrated over a 12,000-square-mile area from Palmdale south to Mexicali, Mexico, as well as over restricted military area near Twentynine Palms, said Civil Air Patrol Lt. Col. Bob Fowler.

“We have no leads at this moment. (The pilot) didn’t file a flight plan, but we believe these were the pilot’s preferred routes,” Fowler said.

Niemela would have had to radio Mexican customs had he crossed the border. Fowler said there has been no known transmission, but they are checking the area anyway.

The Arizona wing of the Civil Air Patrol called off their search effort Monday.

“We’re utilizing the resources we have,” Fowler said. “There is always hope; that is why we are continuing our search.”

Meanwhile, the families of the lost passengers sit at home and wait.

“It is getting worse and worse,” said Norma Draeger, mother of Kathy Bird, 33, of Fullerton. “We’ve just been waiting for some news.”

The television set in Draeger’s living room stays on through the night. Draeger paces through her house with a cordless phone in hand, hoping for word.

Draeger said that friends of Kathy Bird have been calling from all over the state to lend support.

“I never knew Kathy was loved by so many people,” she said.

Kathy works as an assistant manager at the same Lucky Food Center where Erickson works. She studied to be a legal secretary at Fullerton College after attending Lowell High School in Santa Ana. She met Jeff while working as a box person at Lucky’s almost 13 years ago. They married about two years later.

Jeff went to Fullerton College while working part time at Gemco selling electronics.

Jeff and his brother Brad are now construction workers. Their brother Kevin said that they are devoted to the family and to their church.

“We are brothers, but we are also best friends,” Kevin said. They also have an older sister, Pam, and a younger sister, Tracy. “If there is anyone who could survive this, it is Jeff and Brad. They are very resourceful.”

At the home of Pat Bird, the radio was off Wednesday. The television was on but not tuned to news. When the phone rang, nobody jumped.

“A peace has descended over this house,” Pat Bird said.

Don Erickson said he and his wife, Carolyn, call the Civil Air Patrol every evening to find out how many planes went up. They have visited the Apple Valley headquarters of the search effort and they have driven the roads near Banning, scanning the terrain with binoculars.

“The area has been looked at before but it hasn’t been studied,” Don Erickson said. “There are a lot of nooks and crannies.”