Searchers with the Arkansas Forestry Commission and federal, local and other state agencies continued their efforts Monday morning to locate a pilot missing since Friday afternoon in the Ouachita National Forest.
Jake Harrell, 34, a pilot with the Forestry Commission, left the commission’s central dispatch office and airport in Malvern in a single-engine Cessna 210 at 12:40 Friday afternoon to fly a routine “detection flight” in which he was scanning for signs of forest fires, said Adriane Barnes, a commission spokesman. Barnes said pilots flying detection flights are required to check in with dispatchers every 30 minutes.Harrell’s last cont about 1:15 p.m. Friday said.
Barnes said that search crews were a within an hour of last contact.
“When you’ve gothe clock until Sunday evening, when searchers were ordered to remain in staging areas because of heavy ice accumulation and lightning in the area, Barnes said. After a meeting Monday morning, about 100 searchers again spread out in the area with bulldozers, chain saws and four-wheelers, Barnes said.
Barnes said Harrell’s plane was equipped with an emergency locator transmitter although searchers had not detected a signal from the device as of late Monday morning. Searchers had also attempted to triangulate Harrell’s position from his last contact with cellphone and radio towers.
Temperatures in the area dropped from the mid-50s Saturday afternoon to the high 20s early Monday morning, according to data from the National Weather Service recording station in Hot Springs. Barnes said commission pilots do not necessarily take emergency cold-weathergear during detection flights, which are typically five to six hours in length.
Agencies including the U.S. Forest Service, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Arkansas State Police and others were assisting in Monday’s search, Barnes said. Barnes said search crews were not accepting volunteer assistance Monday because of the treacherous terrain and road conditions in the area.
“It’s one of the hairiest terrains in the state,” Barnes said. “He’s gone missing in an extremely difficult location.”
Before Harrell joined the commission as a pilot in 2005, he was a maintenance crew chief with the Arkansas Air National Guard 188th Fighter Wing, based at Fort Chaffee near Fort Smith. Maj. Matt Snead, a spokesman for the Arkansas Air National Guard, said Harrell joined the Guard in 1999 and holds the rank oftechnical sergeant.
Harrell deployed to Iraq in 2005, and to Afghanistan twice, serving at Kandahar Airfield in 2010 and Bagram Airfield in 2012, Snead said. Snead said that Harrell wouldhave likely been servicing F-16 fighter jets in 2005 and A-10 jets in 2010 and after.
Snead said that outside of deployments, Harrell typically trains with the 188th one weekend a month and for two weeks each summer.
Harrell is also a patrol officer with the North Little Rock Police Department. Sgt. Brian Dedrick, a spokesman for the department, said Harrell was hired Jan. 2, 2012, and graduated from the police academy in Pocahontas in April of that year. He was about a month into a six-month introductory period, during which newly certified officers ride with a more experienced officer, when he was activated by the Air National Guard for deployment, Dedrick said.
Barnes said the Forestry Commission had closed the airspace over the search area Monday morning to all aircraft except those assisting in the search for Harrell. Barnes said the commission was using several of its own planes and had promises of helicopter search support from both the Guard and the state police.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/04/2014