Family Finds Plane Wreck After Search Called Off

A month after authorities called off the search, family members of one of the pilots of an aircraft that went missing in Ontario have found the wreckage. Brian Slingerland’s family chartered a plane and spent most of last Saturday searching an area near the last known position of the Piper Comanche Slingerland and his friend John Fehr had recently purchased and were ferrying back to their homes in Alberta, more than 1,500 miles west. They found the wreckage less than five miles from the point of last radar contact of the plane in Lake Superior Provincial Park.

The duo took off from Dehli, Ontario, about 100 miles west of Buffalo, New York, to Marathon, Ontario, about 100 miles north of Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, on April 14. After the plane disappeared, searchers flew about 350 hours trying to find the plane but the search was called off April 24. Authorities say they don’t know what the family did that the searchers didn’t to find the wreckage. "I'm not sure what tactics they were employing," Ontario Provincial Police detective Trevor Tremblay told local media. "But they found the aircraft about seven kilometres from the last known point on radar."