Three-State Search Underway For Missing Bonanza

Authorities in three states sent search teams out looking for a 1979 Beechcraft Bonanza missing since Monday. So far, though, those searchers have come back without a clue as to the whereabouts of the plane or its 63-year old pilot.

Patrick Goudey took off from Mooresville, NC, Monday morning, headed for Smyrna, TN. ATC lost radar contact with him over the mountains of northeastern Georgia.

"It's very upsetting to us," said Tom Wood, who helps run the Lake Norman Air Park. He was quoted by the Charlotte Observer. "He was a very good friend of mine."

More than 100 people scoured parts of South Carolina and Tennessee. But the search is centered in the North Georgia mountains, where authorities said they've picked up intermittent ELT signals.

The Civil Air Patrol was assisting in the search, checking airports in the area in hopes of spotting the Bonanza (file photo of type, above). Family members told the Observer that the CAP has "great hopes" of finding Goudey "alive and intact somewhere."

FMI: www.cap.gov