Weekend flights along the north Moloka'i coastline turned up no signs of a missing Cessna 177 aircraft that disappeared Thursday night. The plane vanished after radar showed it experienced a plunge from 5,000 feet to near sea level in less than a minute.

The Coast Guard searched with boats, a helicopter and a plane from Thursday night through most of Friday and again Saturday morning and early afternoon by helicopter. A Coast Guard public affairs officer said the agency's search is suspended pending any new information.

A Maui Fire Department search was conducted along the northern Moloka'i coastline Friday and Saturday morning.

Neither search turned up any sign of wreckage or survivors.

A flight instructor and a student pilot left Honolulu Airport about 8 p.m. Thursday en route to Kahului. An hour later, they were tracked on radar crossing offshore of the north Moloka'i coast from west to east. Radar showed that shortly before 9 p.m. the plane turned right, toward the island's rugged cliffs, and then, half a mile to a mile from shore, suddenly lost altitude.

The aircraft appeared on radar to have dropped at a rate of more than 100 feet per second —from 5,000 feet to the last confirmed location at 200 feet above sea level in 36 seconds. A witness ashore reported seeing lights dropping from the clouds, and then hearing a crash.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Nicole Charnon said she has not given up hope of wreckage being found but is proceeding with an investigation of available data, including the instructor and student pilot's experience level, the safety and training manuals of aircraft owner Anderson Aviation, and the maintenance records for the plane, a Cessna 177B single-engine aircraft with tail number N30652.