Into Thin Air

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When someone disappears, there is often a straightforward explanation. Yet in some cases the vanishing appears to be so bizarre that it defies all logic. Is it possible that there are forces at work in nature that we cannot explain?

It was some time after midnight on February 26, 1985, when Richard Brownell and his fiancee, Sandra OGrady, left a bar in Newport Beach, California, with a man who, they told friends, was flying them to Las Vegas to visit the casinos. An hour later a single-engine Cessna 152 tow seater plane plunged into the Pacific off Newport Beach. The bodies of Brownell and OGrady, neither of whom could fly a plane, were found strapped to the seats, but there was no trace of the pilot. No engine faults were discovered, and there intense oocean searches failed to find another body.

Investigators looking for the third person reported that a car belonging to the planes owner was discovered near to the planes tie-down spot at John Wayne airport, but the owner could not be found. Nor could investigators established that the owner of the plane was in fact the pilot who went off with the two victims.

Mystery pilot

The police believed that there may have been an airborned muggling: the deceased had had about $3,000 on them when they had set out, but there was only small change on the bodies. Although the plane was only a two-seater, there was a cramped space behind the seats where another person, if he had been small, could have hidden. If this did happen, how could the third passenger have escaped? The plane did not carry parachuttes, and in any case there would not have been room behind the seats for one if someone had been hiding there. "Its getting to be a mystery," said Lt. R Olson of the Orange County Sheriffs Department.
[source: READERS DIGEST]

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But this mystery was solved as I searched the Google news:
3-Week-Old Puzzle Solved
Body in Surf Believed 3rd Plane Crash Victim
March 22, 1985|NANCY WRIDE | Times Staff Writer
A decomposed body discovered Thursday morning in the surf off Newport Beach was identified as that of Kevin Lee Eisiminger, missing since a small plane crashed into the ocean three weeks ago, authorities said.

The discovery of the 30-year-old Huntington Beach residents body explained the puzzling circumstances of the crash for investigators, who found in the wreckage of the two-seater plane the bodies of a man and woman who did not know how to fly.

Investigators said they believed Eisiminger might have been on board because he had access to the plane through his flying club and because he had been seen leaving a Westminster bar to go flying with the couple just hours before the single-engine Cessna plunged into the sea about 2 a.m. Feb. 26. Eisiminger had flown the plane before and had checked it out on the day before the crash, according to the flying clubs president, but Eisiminger did not reserve the plane on the 26th.

His car was found near the planes tie-down spot at John Wayne Airport, and he had not shown up for work following the crash, investigators said.

Eisiminger, a licensed student pilot and employee of McDonnell Douglas Corp., was identified Thursday afternoon by members of the Orange County coroners office, who said they matched Eisimingers dental records with the teeth of the body.

Clothes still on the body--only pants and a pair of boots--matched those that Eisiminger was reportedly wearing when he was last seen with Richard Michael Brownell and his girlfriend, Sandra L. OGrady.

Authorities theorized that Eisiminger, at the time of the crash, was in the seat beside Brownell giving him directions on how to fly the plane.

The bodies of Brownell, a 27-year-old self-employed landscaper from Anaheim, and OGrady, a 25-year-old waitress from Huntington Beach, were found in the crumpled cockpit in 47 feet of water several hours after the crash, authorities said. Brownells body was strapped to the pilots seat, authorities said, while OGradys body was found floating free in the fuselage.

A woman walking on the beach near her oceanfront home about 6:30 a.m. discovered the body of Eisiminger floating in the surf off M Street--about 1 1/2 miles from the crash site--and called authorities, Newport Beach police spokesman Tom Little said. He said officers pulled the body from the waves and notified the coroners office.

"The currents have been from a westerly direction lately, which would have moved a body to the point where this one was found without too much trouble," said Ted Sullivan, the deputy coroner investigating the crash.

The National Transportation and Safety Board officer investigating the crash could not be reached for comment.


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