PASADENA : Wreckage May Be Plane Piloted by Doctor
Civil Air Patrol volunteers found Thursday what may be the wreckage of an airplane piloted by a Pasadena doctor who left Van Nuys Airport a week ago with two other people on a flight to Mammoth Mountain.
“About 1 p.m. we found what we think is the airplane on a snow-covered hill,” said Maj. Wyn Selwyn of the Civil Air Patrol. “There are numbers visible on the wreckage.”
The plane was found in a remote area of Mono County, he said. But there was no word on the condition of the people aboard.
“A private helicopter located the craft 1 1/2 miles west of Swall Meadows at the 9,600-foot level, on the eastern slope of Wheeler Crest,” said Mono County Sheriff’s Lt. Cole Hampton.
A helicopter crew from Lemoore Naval Air Station was expected to pick up a Mono County sheriff’s search-and-rescue team Thursday afternoon, he said.
“They’re going to fly into the area and make an assessment,” Hampton said.
The downed Beechcraft four-seater was piloted by Dr. Eric Kim, 40, an anesthesiologist at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, and took off about 5 p.m. March 23, Selwyn said. Also aboard were Dr. Mauro Wolinski, 38, who practiced at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Long Beach, and Katheryn Muller, a financial consultant in her 30s, Selwyn said.
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