A 1979 PA-18 Super Cub, Blue on white went missing after refueling in Jackpot, NV enroute to Davis, CA.

The pilot and original owner of the aircraft since new was a Roy Grossman accompanied by his 17 year old daughter.

If any of you are flying in that area you might keep an extra eye peeled for reflections, scars, broken tree tops, etc.

Yeah they were showing it on the local news today. Sounds like he was an experienced pilot, been flying since age 17 and had been to Alaska a few times.

The only likely scenario I can think of is engine trouble over the Sierras. From Reno east it's all landable desert, and this last week has been beautiful weather. If he had to put down in the mountains though, they could be rather remote with no cell coverage, and if any injuries, unable to hike. Strange the ELT has not been activated though. I just hope they did not put down in an area too rugged for a survivable landing. The Sierras are like that.

Z

I've been watching for news of this, and found this bit today. The last 2 paragraphs are interesting:

Grossman wasn't required to file a flight plan and the 1979 blue-and-white Piper Super Cub never appeared on radar, said Maj. E.J. Smith of the volunteer Nevada Civil Air Patrol. That suggests the plane was within 500 feet of the ground - below radar - or in some of the rare areas without radar coverage, Smith said.

"He was known to like to go kind of low and look at the mustangs and look at the elk herds," Smith said of Grossman.

She said volunteers and officials in California and Nevada were involved in the search, along with the FBI.

Investigators were looking at several possibilities, including one that the Grossmans may have made a detour to fly over the counterculture gathering known as the Burning Man festival near Gerlach, Nev., Smith said.

"The daughter had expressed some interest in the Burning Man Festival and viewing it from the air," she said.

Wreckage of Plane from California Missing Two Months Located

JARBIDGE, NV (AP) -- The wreckage of a small plane missing since a California man and his daughter took off in it from Jackpot nearly two months ago has been found on a rugged mountain in the wilderness of northeast Nevada.

The two victims in the wreckage have not been positively identified but are believed to be the pilot and his daughter, 55-year-old Roy Grossman and 17-year-old Claire Grossman of Napa,
California.

They were in the blue and white Piper Super Cub flying from Jackpot to Davis, California when it disappeared on August 31.

Two deer hunters on horseback contacted the Elko County Sheriff's Office today after they spotted the plane.

Undersheriff Bill Cunningham said it is located near Divide Peak at an elevation of about 10,000 feet in the Jarbidge Wilderness Area of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

Cunningham told KELK Radio in Elko that the tail number of the plane matches the aircraft the Grossmans were in.

He said they will attempt to recover the bodies tomorrow with the help of a helicopter from the Fallon Naval Air Station.

I guess we sorta' knew what the outcome was going to be. Still sucks to actually get the news.

JARBRIDGE, Nev. - Wreckage found Wednesday in a rugged northeast Nevada wilderness area has been identified from its tail number as the plane flown by former Chico physician Roy Grossman, missing for nearly two months.

Hunters on horseback got close enough to survey the wreckage through binoculars, but couldn't reach it due to bad weather and extremely rugged terrain. They reported seeing two people still inside the cockpit, believed to be Grossman, 56, and his daughter Claire, 17, said the Elko County Sheriff's Office.

The pair flew from Jackson Hole, Wyo., to Jackpot, Nev. Aug. 31, where Grossman refueled his plane, a single-engine Piper Super Cub, before continuing on to Davis, his final destination.
Until a few years ago, Grossman and his family lived in Chico. A former emergency room physician at a local hospital, Grossman started Immediate Care on Vallombrosa Avenue in 1983. He sold the business in 1993 and retired from medicine.

The Grossmans moved from Chico to Davis, but now reside in Napa, a relative said. All of the Grossman children, including Claire, attended Notre Dame School in Chico.

According to Nevada Civil Air Patrol Lt. Scott Lilley, whose wing of volunteer pilots spent two weeks crisscrossing Nevada in a search for the plane, Grossman departed Jackpot with a full tank of gas and apparently flew toward a peak that required the light plane to climb 10,000 feet in about 25 miles.

The fabric-covered aircraft was found crashed, with its wings torn off, on a 10,000-foot promontory called "God's Pocket Peak." The location is southwest of Jackpot in the Jarbridge Wilderness Area of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

A helicopter from Fallon Naval Air Station hoped to reach the crash site Thursday, but Lilley said weather in the remote area wasn't improving.

A search for the missing plane involved hundreds of volunteers.

When the Civil Air Patrol completed an aerial search about mid-September, family members and friends of the Grossmans organized a ground search, branching out from Jackpot in all-terrain vehicles to scour rugged terrain for miles on both sides of the Nevada-Idaho border.

Ironically, said Grossman's sister Kate Shackford of Incline Village, family members and local police volunteers searched the Jarbridge Wilderness Area last month by vehicle and on foot. Shackford said they believe they came within one or two miles of the crash site, but spotted no signs of the plane.

She said help to find the missing plane came from some unexpected sources, including the Nevada Department of Wildlife, which made the names of 3,600 hunting license applicants available to the family.

Roy Grossman is the cousin of National Rifle Association president Sandy Froman.

A family who had known the Grossman's for years produced a flier and mailed it to hunters. Shackford said the two men who found the wreckage Wednesday had the fliers in their possession.

"We learned so much about searches from this experience," said Shackford.

She hopes family members can meet eventually with Civil Air Patrol officials in Montgomery, Ala., to discuss methods beyond aerial searches that can be used to locate missing planes.
She noted that two other planes, missing for as long as three decades, were discovered during the search for the Grossmans.

"There was in incredible awareness about this missing plane," Shackford said. "The family is very grateful for everyone who helped search and prayed for their safe recovery."

Shackford told the Enterprise-Record Thursday she is "Sad, but peaceful" about the discovery of her brother and niece.

"After nearly two months of searching, their bodies were found on the day of our mother's birthday, in a place called God's Pocket Peak," Shackford said. "She (her mother) died 15 years ago, but the family has found that some strange events happen on her birthday."

Lilley said he isn't surprised the plane wasn't found from the air.

"From the beginning, this was the worst case scenario," Lilley said. "There was no flight plan filed, the plane couldn't be tracked by transponder, and the air would have been thin at that altitude, making for a slow rate of climb."

Lilley said pilots flew between 16 and 20 sorties over the Jarbridge wilderness.

Local aviators who knew Grossman said he was an exceptional pilot, but preferred to fly low and would often take detours, occasionally landing in unconventional places.

On Aug. 31, however, Grossman seemed intent on getting straight back to California. He reportedly phoned his wife, Morgan, from Jackpot to say he and Claire would be in Davis in about five hours and asked if she needed anything from Costco. He also called Jackson Hole from Jackpot, but it isn't known who he tried to reach.

"My brother was amazing," Shackford said. "He lived large."

Memorial services for Roy and Claire Grossman are pending. Shackford said the family may plan a gathering at God's Pocket Peak next spring.

"To those who cannot be with us tonight" My dad's favorite toast