Posted on: Tuesday, December 17, 2002

Pilot missing on flight to Marshalls

Associated Press

The Coast Guard searched yesterday for a small airplane that disappeared after taking off from Honolulu International Airport on Sunday.

Harrison Roth, 51, of Tinian, in the Northern Mariana Islands, was piloting a fixed-wing Piper Seneca scheduled to arrive in Majuro, in the Marshall Islands, on Sunday evening, the Coast Guard said.

But officials said Roth did not arrive as scheduled, and had not been in contact with another aircraft since Sunday afternoon.

The search for the plane and its pilot began yesterday morning. Officials said two C-130 Hercules long-range aircraft would search Roth's intended flight path.

The missing aircraft was equipped with a life raft, flares, a global positioning system and two emergency beacons, Coast Guard officials said.

The Marshall Islands are about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawai'i.