5-Day Search for Sheriff’s Reserve Pilot Continues to Be Futile

Planes and crews from Idaho, San Diego and the U.S. Customs Service ended their fifth day of searching Thursday for a San Diego County sheriff’s reserve pilot whose plane disappeared last week over treacherous mountain terrain in southwestern Idaho.

Lawrence Gaylord, 58, flew his Cessna 180 out of Gillespie Field at 6:15 a.m. last Friday. He was bound for Lander, Wyo., to visit his mother and to inspect some property he was considering buying in Caldwell, Ida., said Lt. George Kneeshaw, commander of the air wing of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

Gaylord flew into a thunderstorm about 4 p.m. Friday, Kneeshaw said. His adult son Larry, one of his six children, was with him.

After refueling his light plane in Elko, Nev., Gaylord continued his trip despite bad weather and warnings about the weather. A reserve pilot for the sheriff since 1970, Gaylord has flown in rescue missions in all types of weather, Kneeshaw said.

“The weather was so bad on Friday,” said Lois Green, a spokeswoman for the Idaho Bureau of Aeronautics in Boise. “There were really cloudy conditions, it was raining and visibility was bad. It was bad flying weather.”

Since Sunday, searchers have been checking the area over the Paradise Mountain Military Operations Area in the Owyhee Mountain Range in the southwestern corner of Idaho and the northeastern corner of Nevada. This is where his plane disappeared from FAA radar, Green said.

“The last we heard from the plane was Friday afternoon, and the suspected location was south of the Owyhee Mountains,” Green said. “That’s where we’re concentrating the search. They have really searched that area heavily by air and ground for the past four days.”

Search efforts were beefed up Thursday with the addition of a U.S. Customs aircraft equipped with infrared sensors that detect body heat.

Also, six Idaho Aeronautics and volunteer planes, three Idaho Civil Air Patrol and two aircraft from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department continued looking for Gaylord and his son.