Paul Akita's Beech 1900 Ditched Near Kauai Monday

The US Coast Guard has officially ended its search for a pilot known to have gone down in the Pacific on Monday.

Officials announced Tuesday afternoon that after a search covering about 200 square miles, no additional debris had been located. Lt. Walter Daniel offered, "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the missing pilot...we have exhausted all our resources and covered all the search area."

The pilot, 38-year-old Paul Akita, flew for Alpine Air. He was flying from Honolulu to Lihue to deliver over two tons of mail when his Beechcraft 1900 twin went down in waters south of Kauai, about seven miles south of his intended destination.

As ANN reported earlier this week, search teams found some debris, including a door, on Monday morning.

Details of the last few minutes of the flight are vague, because the crash happened before the Federal Aviation Administration opened its Lihue tower at 0600 local time. FAA spokesman Ian Gregor told KITV News controllers' last instruction to Akita was to follow an Aloha Airlines plane in for a "visual approach" to Lihue.

When Akita never called to close his flight plan, the FAA called Alpine Air both in Honolulu and Utah to try to find the pilot, but got no answer. Gregor says more confusion followed, delaying the start of the search about an hour and a half.

"We then contacted an airline pilot who had landed at Lihue just before Alpine was scheduled to arrive, and we asked the airline pilot if Alpine was there. The airline pilot apparently mistook another Beechcraft King Air for the Alpine plane, and informed us that, yes, Alpine had landed."

Gregor says it wasn't until Alpine Air called controllers about 0700 to ask about their missing pilot that the FAA notified the Coast Guard and the search got under way.

Akita is reported to have funded the acquisition of his commercial pilot certificate by teaching surf lessons.

FMI: www.uscg.mil, www.alpine-air.com