Copter Aids in Plane Search : Aviation: The low-flying aircraft joins fixed-wing flights over desert in hunt for the Fullerton-bound Cessna, which has been missing since Nov. 14.

By BILL BILLITER

Nov. 30, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Orange County search and rescue volunteers made low-level helicopter flights over barren, isolated parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties Friday, but failed to turn up any signs of a small plane that disappeared en route to Fullerton two weeks ago.

The private helicopter joined fixed-wing aircraft under the supervision of the Civil Air Patrol to crisscross the Mojave Desert. They were hunting for the twin-engine Cessna with five aboard that took off Nov. 14 from Bullhead City, Ariz. and has not been seen since.

Meanwhile on Friday, a sister of the missing plane’s pilot issued a plea that the search not be stopped until the aircraft is found.

“Family members are afraid the search may be stopped after this weekend, but this can’t be left unsolved,” said Jill Niemela of La Mirada. Her brother is Richard Niemela, 37, also of La Mirada.

She said her family and the families of the four other missing persons on the Cessna would be in agony if the search ended without finding the plane.

But a Civil Air Patrol spokeswoman at Apple Valley Airport on Friday said no definite date has been set for ending the search.

“Right now we don’t know when the search will end,” said Capt. Nancy Brady, a CAP public affairs officer. “We’ve got aircraft out searching again today (Friday), and we had aircraft out on Thanksgiving also.”

Others on the missing plane were Kathy Bird, 33, and her husband, Jeff Bird, 32, of Fullerton; Jeff’s brother, Bradley Bird, 33, of Placentia, and Natalie Erickson, 19, of Placentia.

The Civil Air Patrol, an all-volunteer unit of private pilots, has flown more than 470 missions since Nov. 15 in efforts to find the missing plane, Brady said.

Ironically, the searchers on Nov. 21 found the wreckage of a plane that had been missing for eight years. The remains of three persons who had been aboard the plane were also found.

Jill Niemela said the discovery of that long-lost plane intensified her hopes that her brother’s Cessna 336 Skymaster will also be found.

“We’ve been waiting for two weeks now, hoping that something will be found,” she said. “Our family got together for Thanksgiving, and we sat at the same table, but it definitely wasn’t a happy occasion. I don’t want to think about Christmas turning out that way.”

The five persons on the missing Cessna had flown Nov. 13 from Fullerton Airport to Bullhead City, a desert community just across the Colorado River from the gambling hotels and casinos of Laughlin, Nev. The five stayed overnight at a Laughlin hotel, then boarded their plane for a return flight to Fullerton on the afternoon of Nov. 14.

Federal Aviation Administration officials said Richard Niemela did not file a flight plan of his intended route back to Fullerton. On Nov. 14, a cold front moved into Southern California, sending high winds sweeping across the deserts and dropping snow in the mountains.

Despite the bleak outlook for the five on the plane, Jill Niemela said Friday that hopes for their survival are not completely extinguished.

“I won’t believe they are dead until I hear it,” she said. “Not knowing is the worst. . . . Sometimes I think, ‘Are they out there? Is the plane out there?’ That’s why I think the search must continue.”

Volunteers from the CAP and the Orange County Search and Rescue organization spent most of the daylight hours Friday battling high winds in a fruitless effort to spot signs of a plane wreck.

The Orange County Search and Rescue volunteers flew a private helicopter from Riverside Airport. The chopper, on two separate flights, hovered only about 500 feet above the rugged foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains and remote parts of the Morongo Valley.

At Apple Valley Airport, in the high desert area of San Bernardino County, the Civil Air Patrol had 19 planes out on Friday, all of them looking for the missing Cessna.

“The weather out there got really bad this (Friday) afternoon,” said CAP spokeswoman Brady. “The winds were very strong.”