Civil Air Patrol's California Wing searches San Gabriel Mountains for missing glider

By Chris Storey, 1st Lt., CAP, Deputy Director of Public Affairs-South, California Wing, CAP

Aircraft of the Civil Air Patrol searched the San Gabriel Mountains early Sunday morning for a missing glider, Capt. Bob Keilholtz of the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary/Civil Air Patrol said.

The engine-less sailplane carrying two passengers was reported missing by family members Saturday evening when it failed to return to its point of departure.

The glider, a Burkhart Grob model G103 Twin, was expected to make a one-hour local flight after being towed Saturday afternoon to an altitude of approximately 9,300 feet by a fixed-wing aircraft before being released in the area of Mt. Baden Powell, in the San Gabriel Mountains.

After a search of the Crystal Airport failed to locate the missing glider, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Langley AFB, Va., tasked the California Wing of the Civil Air Patrol to search for the missing glider, Keilholtz said.

The glider was not equipped with an Emergency Locator Transmitter, Keilholtz said. “Without an active ELT distress signal to search for we had to wait until daylight to begin visual searches of the most probable places where they could have landed,” Keilholtz said.

An Emergency Locator Transmitter is a radio beacon typically carried in powered aircraft that automatically transmits a radio distress signal after a crash landing to assist search and rescue personnel in locating the crash site.

“We have four Civil Air Patrol aircraft flying this morning in the San Gabriel Mountains visually searching over 250 square miles,” Keilholtz said yesterday.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Aero Bureau was searching the same area with one of their helicopters while the Civil Air Patrol aircraft were flying the higher elevation areas.

The missing glider was found at approximately 7:20 a.m., Sunday morning, on the south slope of the mountain range at approximately 4,200 feet elevation in a canyon wash, approximately four miles west of the Mountain High Ski Resort, Keilholtz said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department airlifted both passengers out and reported they were uninjured. “They were examined and released in the field and are now resting at home,” Sheriff’s Deputy Oscar Butao said.

The National Weather Service in Oxnard, Calif., reported overnight temperatures in the San Gabriel Mountains in the 20’s to 30’s.

The Air Force Rescue Coordination Center awarded two search and rescue “distress saves” to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Wing of the Civil Air Patrol.

“My experience managing search missions involving gliders is that you typically have very minor injuries compared to powered aircraft crashes, possibly due to the gliders' increased maneuverability giving the pilot extra time to look for the safest place to make a forced landing and more control over the glider until it is on the ground.” This was the classic missing aircraft search and rescue mission, Keilholtz said. “With the exception of having to wait until first light to launch any aircraft to begin flying visual searches, the missing glider and both passengers were found alive within the first operational period,” Keilholtz said.

Civil Air Patrol, the official U.S. Air Force Auxiliary, is a non-profit organization. It performs more than 85% of inland search and rescue missions tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center in the Continental United States. Volunteers also take a leading role in Aerospace education and serve as mentors to America’s youth through Civil Air Patrol cadet programs.

Related sites: The California Wing, CAP, http://www.cawg.cap.gov/ ; The Civil Air Patrol, http://www.cap.gov/ .