Aircraft Was Missing Since Tuesday, Found In Dense Forest Area

The wreckage of a tour aircraft, missing since June 17, was found Sunday morning by a search helicopter scanning remote areas around the big island of Hawaii. All three aboard did not survive the crash.

The Honolulu Advertiser reports wreckage of the missing Cessna 172M was spotted at 0553 local time at a 5,200-foot elevation in a remote location within the Ka’u Forest Preserve. The site is eight and a half miles northwest of Punalu’u Beach and eight and a half miles west of Pahala. The site is not accessible from the ground.

According to Fire Chief Darryl Olivera, county fire helicopters were used to deliver an investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board to the scene and to recover the bodies of the pilot Katsuhiro Takahashi, 40, and the two passengers aboard, Japanese tourists Nobuhiro and Masako Suzuki, 53 and 56.

The aircraft operated by Island Hoppers, departed the Kona Airport at 1015 on June 17 for a clockwise two and a half hour tour of the island. The aircraft last reported over a coastal lava flow area between 1130 and 1145.

The area searchers were concentrating in was narrowed on Friday after a report late Thursday from Nature Conservancy workers who had been camping out of contact on the Mauna Loa volcano. They reported hearing plane's engine suddenly stop about 1300 on the day the aircraft was reported missing.

The area where the aircraft was found had been previously searched by U.S. Coast Guard crews but poor visibility on the upper slopes of Mauna Loa, with clouds closing in on the area almost every morning, hampered the effort.

"Weather was probably a factor in not seeing it before as well as the vegetation was pretty thick," with a 30-foot canopy towering over a forest of large hapu'u ferns, Oliveira said.

Oliveira noted there was some broken vegetation where the plane struck, but not a great deal, suggesting the plane may have come down at a steep angle.

A staging area was set up on a high meadow about a mile from the site to accommodate search and investigation crews. Oliveira said the aircraft debris will not be removed until the NTSB has completed its investigation.

IDENTIFICATION
 Regis#: 13713    Make/Model: C172   Description: 172, P172, R172, Skyhawk, Hawk XP, Cutla
 Date: 06/17/2008   Time: 0000

 Event Type: Accident  Highest Injury: Fatal   Mid Air: N  Missing: N
 Damage: Unknown

LOCATION
 City: KONA  State: HI  Country: US

DESCRIPTION
 N13713, AN ISLAND HOPPERS AIR TAXI CESSNA 172M AIRCRAFT, IS THE SUBJECT OF
 AN ALERT NOTICE ISSUED AND SEARCH INITIATED 6/17, NOW PRESUMED AN ACCIDENT
 AS AIRCRAFT FAILED TO RETURN FOR A LOCAL SIGHTSEEING TOUR, THE THREE
 PERSONS ON BOARD ARE PRESUMED TO BE FATALLY INJURED, UPDATE: WRECKAGE
 LOCATED IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN NEAR PAHALANEAR KONA, HAWAII

INJURY DATA   Total Fatal:  3
         # Crew:  1   Fat:  1   Ser:  0   Min:  0   Unk: 
         # Pass:  2   Fat:  2   Ser:  0   Min:  0   Unk: 
         # Grnd:     Fat:  0   Ser:  0   Min:  0   Unk: 

WEATHER: ITO 2153Z 110013KT 10SM CLR 28/19 A3007

OTHER DATA
 Activity: Business   Phase: Unknown   Operation: OTHER

 FAA FSDO: HONOLULU, HI (WP13)         Entry date: 06/20/2008 #

FMI: www.faa.gov