Searchers confirmed that Jake Harrell, the Arkansas Forestry Commission pilot missing since Jan. 31, was found dead Tuesday near Glenwood in Montgomery County.
Adriane Barnes, a Forestry Commission spokesman, said the wreckage of the single-engine Cessna 210 that Harrell had been flying was spotted from the air by an Arkansas Civil Air Patrol crew about 4 p.m. The plane’s locationwas later confirmed by an Arkansas State Police helicopter crew. A member of the Arkansas Air National Guard was lowered by helicopter and was able to confirm that there was a body inside the aircraft, Barnes said.
Ground crews were then directed to the site and removed the body, Barnes said.
Although searchers are “99 percent sure” that the body is that of Harrell, an investigation will be conducted to confirm it, Barnes said.
Harrell, 34, took off about 12:40 p.m. Jan. 31 from the Malvern Municipal Airport on a routine fire-detection flight over a 100-mile section of the Ouachita National Forest between Malvern and Wickes.Forestry Commission pilots on such flights are expected to contact dispatchers on the radio every 30 minutes. Harrell’s last radio contact was about 1:15 p.m., and about an hour later, search efforts began for Harrell.
The Malvern airport houses the Forestry Commission’s fleet of more than a dozen planes and the commission’s radio dispatch center.
Approximately 100 ground searchers from local, state and federal agencies scoured the rugged terrain of the Ouachita National Forest during the 11-day hunt. Search organizers did not involve civilian volunteers because of the difficult terrain and winter weather in the area.
Although fixed-wing pilots from nine of the state’s 11 Civil Air Patrol squadrons participated in the search, and the state police and Air National Guard made helicopters available, air-search efforts were repeatedly halted because of the weather.
Skies cleared and temperatures rose Tuesday, bolsteringthe hopes of search organizers in Mena, Barnes said.
During the first few days of the search, crews concentrated on a 100-square-mile area south of Oden, about 70 miles west of Malvern. The decision to search there was based on Harrell’s last radio contact with dispatchers and on cellphone tower signal data.
As the hunt continued, search organizers received tips from residents in the region and expanded the search area as far west as the Oklahoma border and as far south as Lake Greeson, about 15 miles southwest of Glenwood. By Tuesday, the search had covered about 2.6 million acres, the largest such effort in state history, Barnes said.
The Forestry Commission would not speculate on a cause of the crash or on why the plane was found outside the original search area. Lynn Lunsford, a spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration, said the crash will be investigated by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Maj. Blake Sasse, a spokesman for the Civil Air Patrol, said the plane that eventually spotted the wreckage of Harrell’s aircraft was flown by members of the air patrol’s 95th Composite Squadron based in Texarkana.
Before joining the Forestry Commission in 2005, Harrell enlisted with the Arkansas Air National Guard in 1999, eventually serving as a maintenance crew chief with the 188th Fighter Wing at Fort Chaffee. Harrell, who held the rank of technical sergeant, was deployed to Iraq in 2005 and Afghanistan in 2010 and 2012.
Harrell was also a patrolman with the North Little Rock Police Department. He joined the department in January 2012.
Harrell was married and had a young son.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/12/2014