Weather, Fires Hamper Search for Missing Plane

MADERA, Calif. — Bad weather and lightning-sparked fires hampered efforts Tuesday to locate two people aboard a single-engine plane that disappeared after taking off from Hawthorne Airport for mountain resorts in the Sierra.

Redwanj Abouhamed of Hawthorne left Compton Airport sometime Sunday morning in a Piper Cherokee without filing a flight plan, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elly Brekke said. He then stopped at Hawthorne Airport to pick up an acquaintance, John Lazar of Inglewood.

Civil Air Patrol spokesman Frank Burnham said a dozen search planes from a base in Madera scoured a roughly 3,000-square-mile area along a corridor between Fresno and Mammoth on Monday.

On Tuesday, searchers were grounded until mid-morning by low clouds but managed to cover the Sierra foothills to about the 7,000-foot level before a series of lightning-sparked blazes in mid-afternoon brought them into conflict with firefighting aircraft and forced them to call it a day.

The search for Abouhamed and his passenger began Sunday afternoon when his wife phoned the FAA, saying her husband planned to fly to either Big Bear or Mammoth but had not arrived by 10 a.m. as expected, Brekke said.

The plane had apparently refueled at Fresno Airport and Abouhamed received a weather briefing to Mammoth, Burnham said.

But Fresno lost the plane from its radar about 30 miles northeast of the airport and the plane has not been seen since.

Burnham said it was not unusual to lose a plane from radar because of the terrain. To get to Mammoth, the pilot would have had to maneuver above the 9,000-foot Sierra, he said.