California and Nevada Wing Airmen Participated in Search For Missing Aircraft

April 24, 2017

Search for missing aircraft suspended

Sacramento, Calif. – Civil Air Patrol concluded its operations Monday morning in the search for a missing aircraft with two persons on board in the Sierra Nevada mountain range after the search was suspended by the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office at 9 p.m. Sunday night. The aircraft has not been found.

The Socata TB-20 Trinidad took off April 17 from the Truckee-Tahoe Airport in Truckee and never arrived at its intended destination of Petaluma Municipal Airport. Civil Air Patrol was activated for the search shortly after midnight Tuesday by the U.S. Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.

Aerial assets from the California Highway Patrol and California National Guard also participated in the multi-agency search, as did CAP ground teams and those from multiple agencies. The search was conducted in a unified command in support of the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office.

Throughout the six-day search, CAP aircrews from California and Nevada conducted visual and photographic searches while logging more than 60 flight hours over the rugged, heavily-wooded and snow-covered search area located 18 miles northwest of Truckee.

CAP volunteers on the ground reviewed more than 8,000 high resolution digital images of the search area, which were captured by wing-mounted cameras on the CAP search planes.

“We are extremely disappointed in the outcome of this search,” said CAP Incident Commander Maj. Shane Terpstra. “We always hope for a fast resolution with missing aircraft searches, but rapidly changing weather compounded with fresh snow worked against us this entire search. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.”

More than 117 CAP volunteers, 15 CAP aircraft and 12 CAP vehicles participated in the search.

USAF Evaluated Exercise This Weekend!

Members of Squadron 150 will join other members (including Senior Members (Adults) and Cadets) from California Wing squadrons this weekend (22-23 April, 2017) for the bi-annual U.S. Air Force (USAF) Evaluated Exercise. Every other year the USAF evaluates CAWG during a statewide training exercise to ensure that we are proficient in our capabilities as the US Air Force Auxiliary.

During the exercise aircrews and ground teams typically are tasked with a variety of missions from locating a missing aircraft, to taking airborne pictures of a simulated disaster area, to locating a practice emergency locator transmitter (ELT) and more.

Mission Base for this Exercise is Squadron 5 HQ at Riverside Municipal Airport (KRAL)-and there are several remote bases located throughout California as well.

Congratulations 2d Lt. Steven Schock!

Squadron 150 is pleased to announce the promotion of SM Steven Schock to the grade of second lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol (CAP). 2d Lieutenant Schock became a member of CAP in 2016 out of a desire to enhance his skill set and experience as a pilot (he currently holds an FAA Private Pilot Certificate and has over 300 hours pilot-in-command (PIC), and to use his skills as a pilot to serve the community and nation.

Maj. Jerry Civalleri (L) and Squadron 150 Commander Capt. David Powell (R) with 2d Lt. Steve Schock (C)

Schock serves as the squadron's Safety Officer and as an Assistant Aerospace Education Officer. He is a qualified Mission Scanner and is currently working towards qualifying as a Mission Observer and as a CAP pilot.

We congratulate 2d Lieutenant Schock on his promotion and thank him for his service to Civil Air Patrol and Squadron 150. 

Join us Thursday Night for our Next Squadron Meeting!

Squadron 150 resumes our normal meeting schedule this Thursday 6 April, 2017 and we invite you to join us if you're interested in seeing what Civil Air Patrol is all about!

This week's meeting is our monthly Safety Briefing and our Safety Officer 2d Lt. Steve Schock will be guiding us through an analysis of the crash of the Piper Saratoga piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. and culling what we can learn from the crash.

Next week is Emergency Services-Aircrew Training and we will focus on three key areas:

• Ground Operations and Safety
• The Pre-Flight Inspection Process
• What to Do Post-Crash

Squadron 150 members we look forward to seeing you there on Thursday! Guests, we invite you to our squadron-we think you'll like what you experience! For more information about where we meet at Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training base, please click here for more information.