11/05/2018: Search for Missing Swimmer in Lake Michigan
This morning, at the request of Highland Park Fire Department, we launched an aircraft — staffed with our all-volunteer aircrew — to search for a swimmer (from Elgin) that went missing while swimming as part of a cold water swimming event in Lake Michigan from a Highland Park Beach on Sunday, November 4th. At the direction of the Highland Park Fire Department Incident Commander, we performed several hasty route-searches and creeping-circle search patterns along the Lake Michigan lake-shore from Highland Park to Lake Forest, Illinois. These searches provided very good coverage of the search area but, unfortunately, did not yield any finds. The aircrew flew for nearly 2 hours and was satisfied that they provided the best possible coverage they could for the requested search and returned to base at DuPage Airport in West Chicago, Illinois.
As of now, we are on-standby in case additional aerial searching is required in this case. We stand ready to help if needed more.
All of our search and rescue services are offered for free — donated by the generosity of our volunteer pilots and aircrews — if you’d like to help contribute so that we can fly more searches, please visit our GoFundMe page.
MISSION PRESS RELESE: http://pilotsforhope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Press-Release-Pilots-for-Hope-Search-for-Missing-Swimmer.pdf
09/02/2018: Search for Missing Kayaker in Lake Michigan
We had been tracking the headlines of a kayaker, Sebastian Duncan, who went missing on Lake Michigan on Monday, August 27th and the families pleas for assistance were just breaking our hearts. Thus, at our first opportunity away from our work and family obligations, we planned a self-funded aerial search mission on Sunday, September 2nd.
By estimating Lake Michigan current direction and minimum/maximum velocities we isolated a probably target area from Kenosha to Milwaukee and plotted a parallel grid search from the shoreline to 8 miles offshore to insure maximum coverage. The search took over 2 hours to complete but, sadly, yielded no targets of interest.
As of September 6, 2018, he has still not been recovered and we are discussing how we can fund\perform additional missions to help recover him. If you’d like to help contribute so that we can fly more searches, please consider visiting our GoFundMe page.