A Civil Air Patrol airplane assisting in the search for the Cessna 414A Chancellor with three people aboard picked up a faint signal from an emergency locating transmitter at about 9:48 a.m. and located the wreckage about 22 miles north of Hilo, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Jennifer Johnson. The location was passed to a Coast Guard aircraft, which confirmed the wreckage.

Big Island fire rescue specialists were sent to the site and found no survivors, according to Big Island fire dispatch.

The air ambulance crew included Emergency Medical Services district chief Mandy Shiraki and Joseph Daniel Villiaros, 39, a firefighter with the Honolulu Fire Department. Both work part-time for the air ambulance company. The pilot has not been identified.

The plane had disappeared in stormy weather early Saturday as the crew tried to reach Hilo Medical Center to evacuate a patient.

Kilani Villiaros, 14, praised her father in a statement she read on behalf of a dozen family members who gathered at the Hawai'i Air Ambulance headquarters yesterday.

Villiaros, who does not live with her father, said her dad taught her to surf and spent time with her shopping at the mall. She said he was trying to buy a home down the street from where she lives.

"Even though I didn't see him as much as I wanted to, he was a great dad," Kilani Villiaros said.

She said she last saw her father Thursday when they ate at McDonald's together. Villiaros' mother, Dominica, a minister, said her son liked to help people. She said as the youngest of five children, her son was a good worker and very obedient.

She said her son was sent to EMT school after joining the National Guard. She said he earned a commendation from the mayor for assisting in an "ice" arrest.

"We're so proud of him," Dominica Villiaros said. "This is a rude awakening, we did not expect this to happen."

Villiaros has been with Hawai'i Air Ambulance for a year.

Mandy Shiraki's wife, Melinda Shiraki, is also a paramedic.

"They are very grateful for the outpouring of love and offers of assistance," Kelly Yamamoto, a family friend and co-worker, said last night. "They ask everyone to continue to pray for Mandy and the other crew members."

Yamamoto, also with EMS, said she has known Mandy Shiraki for 20 years.

"All of his life saving and helping people and training people — he's probably the most dedicated EMS worker in all history," she said. "He's a great co-worker: always looking out for his field personnel, always helpful, always giving 150 percent of himself in everything.

"He is the best," she said.

Retired Fire Capt. Richard Soo said Shiraki's is a familiar face to most emergency workers in the community, who know the district chief for his tendency to be the first at the scene of an emergency.

The air ambulance left Honolulu early Saturday to pick up a 9-year-old patient from the Hilo Medical Center, and was due back in Honolulu shortly after 4 a.m. Saturday.

Authorities said the plane veered off the normal path for air ambulances on the leg of the journey between 'Upolu Point and Hilo. Those flights usually follow the coast at about 9,500 feet, but the missing flight headed further inland and was noted traveling at about 5,900 feet.

Searchers suspect the pilot deviated from his planned route into Hilo and sought out higher elevations toward Mauna Kea after running into bad weather.

"Weather along the coastline was terrible — socked in, with heavy rains and winds along the shores," said Coast Guard Lt. j.g. James Garland.

The pilot radioed to ask about any thunderstorm activity in the Hilo area, and the last confirmed radar contact at 1:29 a.m. Saturday put the Cessna near the Waimea-Kohala Airport outside Waimea.