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BajaNews
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Missing in Mexico
http://tracypress.com/content/view/5319/2/
Sam Matthews
03 November 2006
Former Tracy residents Gary and Peggy Toste Thomas flew to Cabo San Lucas to help in a hurricane's aftermath. But their single-engine plane was last
seen over Baja in bad weather, and no one has heard from the couple in 10 days.
American bush pilots have been searching the Baja Peninsula of Mexico and the Gulf of California for the past week for a single-engine plane carrying
former Tracy residents Gary and Peggy Toste Thomas.
But so far, there has been no sign of the Bonanza aircraft that is believed to have taken off from the airport at Cabo San Lucas on Oct. 23 in the
face of Hurricane Paul.
“It’s been 10 days, and we just don’t know what happened to the plane,” Peggy Thomas’ father, Joe Toste of Tracy, said Thursday. “We have been hoping
something would turn up, but so far — nothing.”
The air search for the plane is being carried out by four American pilots who earlier had flown to Mulege, about a third of the way down the
600-mile-long Baja Peninsula, Toste said. Don Johnson, owner of a hotel near where the Thomases have a vacation home in Mulege, is organizing the
search, he reported.
“Johnson, a pilot, told me they would continue looking for the plane for at least another five or six days, but it’s a big area,” Toste said. “The
plane could have gone down on the Baja Peninsula or in the Gulf of California between Baja and the Mexican mainland. We just don’t know.”
Toste said he last heard from his daughter, who lives in Escalon, on Oct. 23. She told him the plane had taken off from the landing strip at Mulege to
head home. The couple had flown there three days earlier to deliver food and water to locals following an earlier hurricane.
“Peggy told me that after they had taken off, they turned back in the face of the storm,” he said. “They couldn’t get gas at San Felipe, farther
north, so they back-tracked to Cabo San Lucas farther south on the Baja Peninsula and would wait a couple of days for the weather to clear.”
Apparently, the plane stayed on the ground for only several hours before taking off again and heading north, the Tostes have learned.
Toste said his daughter, 45, and her husband, 52, had their last radio contact in the mid-Baja Peninsula area with two American pilots who also had
headed north and then turned south because of the storm.
“Gary told one of the pilots he was increasing altitude to 4,000 to 5,000 feet to get out of the turbulence, and that’s the last they heard from him,”
Toste said.
Toste said he and his wife, Evelyn, didn’t become concerned until they hadn’t heard from their daughter for three days. And that’s when he called
Johnson in Mulege and the American consulate in Tijuana.
Toste also contacted the U.S. Coast Guard in San Diego. A Coast Guard officer told him they would have cutters on the lookout in the Pacific Ocean off
Baja, but that the Mexican Navy had jurisdiction in the Gulf of California, and he would notify them of the missing plane.
Toste also contacted a helicopter company in San Diego but was told that the problems of providing fuel and other logistics for a search that could
take several weeks made it impractical.
“I thought about going down there, but I don’t know the territory or what I could do there,” Toste said. “Our hopes lie with the bush pilots flying
out of Mulege. I hear from Johnson several times a day, but they haven’t found anything. It’s been a hard time for Evelyn and me as the days go by
without knowing.”
Gary Thomas, a partner in several Del Taco restaurants, has been flying for about four years. He and his wife have made numerous trips to Baja.
Peggy Toste Thomas is a native of Tracy and a 1979 graduate of Tracy High School. She has been office manager for JT Storage, a family-owned business
near the Toste family home in northwest Tracy. She has two children from a previous marriage, Joseph Fagundes, 19, and Samantha Fagundes, 14.
The Thomases, who have been married for the past 10 years, lived in Tracy before moving to Escalon two years ago.
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BajaNews
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Volunteers Search In Mexico For Missing CA Couple
Nov 3, 2006
(AP) ESCALON, Calif.. Volunteers joined the search in Mexico for a couple who never arrived in the San Joaquin Valley after they flew their private
plane from a Baja California airstrip nearly two weeks ago.
Gary Thomas, 52, and Peggy Thomas, 45, previously lived in Escalon, near Modesto, before moving to Mulege, Mexico, two years ago.
Family in Stanislaus County reported the couple missing after they didn't arrive Oct. 23.
The couple left a private airstrip at Hotel Serenidad and said they were headed for the United States, said Don Johnson, the hotel's owner.
"Unfortunately, they had a bad start," Johnson said. "There was real bad weather. There was a lot of lightning."
U.S. Customs officials said the couple's plane did not enter the country through any points of entry.
A search team planned to continue to look for the missing couple or their Beech P35 single-engine plane until Saturday, said Claudia Smith, who was
coordinating volunteers.
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BajaNews
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S.J. couple's plane disappears in Mexico
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061104...
By Jake Armstrong
November 04, 2006
TRACY - It's been 12 days since the family of Gary and Peggy Toste Thomas last heard from the Escalon couple whose single-engine plane left a dirt
airstrip in Baja California as Hurricane Paul spun toward the peninsula.
The family believes the couple left Mulege, Baja California, on Oct. 23 after delivering food and water to residents in the tiny coastal village
recovering from a previous hurricane.
But the couple's plane disappeared somewhere over the peninsula or the Sea of Cortez shortly after Gary radioed two other pilots who were also
escaping a nearby storm to say he was ascending to dodge turbulence.
Now, the family of Peggy Toste Thomas is waiting in frustration as search parties scour land and sea for signs of the missing couple's plane.
"It's really been kind of a nightmare going through all this stuff," said Rod Toste, Peggy's 48-year-old brother.
The Mexican government on Friday asked the U.S. Air Force to join in the search, which was being conducted by the Mexican navy, the U.S. Coast Guard
and private pilots who frequent Mulege, the Toste family said.
"We're just waiting. We don't have any more news," said Evelyn Toste, Peggy Toste Thomas' mother. "It's just been kind of frustrating."
The couple, which had lived in Tracy before moving to Escalon a year ago, had a small vacation home in Mulege and flew there often since Gary Thomas
bought the plane about three years ago, Rod Toste said. Their latest trip began Oct. 20 as Hurricane Paul grew in intensity off the southwest coast of
the peninsula.
Details are sketchy about what happened when they left on Oct. 23, gleaned mainly from information other pilots have provided, the family said.
Rod Toste said the Thomases probably headed south from Mulege to a larger city to refuel before retracing the first leg of their usual route through
San Felipe, San Diego and back to Stockton Metropolitan Airport, where their plane was hangared.
But a storm forced them to turn back to Mulege before they reached San Felipe. Instead of staying on the ground, family members believe the couple
left again a few hours later and disappeared.
On Monday, the family called a hotel in Mulege run by a pilot who knew the Thomases. They were told the couple had not been seen since they left in
their plane a week before, Rod Toste said. Based on the pilots' information, Rod Toste believes the couple's plane likely disappeared about 200 miles
north of Mulege.
"They left the second time, and that's the last time we heard from them," he said. "We were under the impression that they were going to stay there
and ride it out."
Peggy Toste Thomas, who helped run her family's storage business in Tracy, has two children, a 16-year-old daughter who attends high school in
Stockton and a 19-year-old son in college, Evelyn Toste said. Gary Thomas runs Del Taco franchises in the area.
The Toste family holds hope the search will find the pair alive.
"We're keeping our fingers crossed," Evelyn Toste said.
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capt. mike
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Location: Bat Cave
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recent BBP aerial search efforts:
"Seach Update, November 3
I have just gotten back from Mulege. We had four aircraft in the air searching for the past two days. We flew two-three hour flights on Wednesday
and one-two hour flight and one-three hour flight on Thursday. Total time in the air for the four aircraft in direct search was about 46 hours. This
does not include trips to either Loreto or Guaymas for fuel several times.
The search was at both Bahia de las Angeles and the area around Punta Chivato & Santa Rosalia. All areas were searched at least twice by
different aircraft in different grids.
The search aircraft are as follows:
Baja 1: Jack McCormick with spotter Joe Puchi. (Arizona)
Baja 2: Don Rake with spotter Pam Rake, (California and Mulege)
Baja 3: Terry Rahe, (Oregon) with spotters Dave and Bobbie Powers, (Montana & Mulege)
Baja 4: Jerry Chandler, (California) with spotter Ron Polley (Idaho)
Bahia de las Angeles.
We had been informed of an ELT signal from that area prior departing Chandler and were told about it again at San Felipe. When getting close to that
area, we heard the ELT and, in talking to one of our search aircraft who was at about 5,000’ they indicated that they believed the signal was from one
of the two aircraft parked on the ground at Bay of LA. We landed Bay of LA and determined that a 206 on the ground was transmitting the signal. We
were able to turn it off and left a note for the owner.
When on the ground, a taxi driver at Bay of LA told us that on the day of the disappearance, during what they called the storm of the century, i.e.
lighting, thunder, driving rain, etc. they heard the sound of an aircraft and then the engine noise stopped. They indicated that it sounded like it
was on the mountain just west of the city.
Because of this information, two of us did a full search of the mountain from its start on the north end to about 10 miles south of the city. One
aircraft started at the top (about 6,000) and the other started at ground level. We increased (or decreased) our elevation about 600 feet every pass.
After a two hours period, the area was covered and we went on down to Palo Verde to discuss how to cover the next area.
Palo Verde.
Because of information from pilots who talked to the missing aircraft and the location that the pilot indicated he was at, we set up four grids from
Mulege to highway 1 north of Santa Rosalia. All four aircraft worked their grids from north to south. When this was completed, we changed grids and
searched again, this time going from east to west. Additional grids were set which included the above areas as well as the islands and the beaches
from Mulege to about 40 miles north of Santa Rosalia.
We found no signs of the aircraft, wreckage, burn spots, etc. on the ground or along the beach.
This morning, we were informed that the Mexican Navy had sent in a helicopter(s) as well as made a formal request for help from the US Coast Guard to
work on the search. In addition, we have been told that the family has hired a helicopter from the states to participate in the efforts.
We have provided specific information on where we have searched which will be passed on to the Navy. This information is on a CH22 chart at the
Serenidad. If you have done a detailed search in an area (not just a look see as you pass over) please mark the area that you searched on the chart."
well, they're doing all they can. The BBP is quite an ORG!!
formerly Ordained in Rev. Ewing\'s Church by Mail - busted on tax fraud.......
Now joined L. Ron Hoover\'s church of Appliantology
\"Remember there is a big difference between kneeling down and bending over....\"
www.facebook.com/michael.l.goering |
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Summanus
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Capt. mike, you are to be commended for all your efforts on the Thomas's behalf..and also that great club, the BBP.
We have made the flight from California to Baja Sur in small planes many times over the years...2 or 3 in a friend's Bonanza 35...and realize it is a
huge search you have undertaken. Our hopes and prayers are with all the Thomas family and all the people involved in this mission.
I have been reading some of the reports on BBP about the search. I guess that report on BBP of smoke/steam in the mountains west of LA Bay on Oct
23rd has been checked out as per your post above?
[Edited on 11-4-2006 by Summanus]
Summanus....ancient Roman Nightly Thunder God. He liked refrieds too.
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Bruce R Leech
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Posts: 6796
Registered: 9-20-2004
Location: Ensenada formerly Mulege
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Mood: A lot cooler than Mulege
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Mike are they going to continue searching?
Bruce R Leech
Ensenada
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capt. mike
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i think Jack and the 4 planes this week searched that area well.
just to clarify - i have not been involved with a search, only reporting what i hear/know. The kudos go to the BBP and those who have donated time and
money/via AC resources to help find them.
i believe they didn't make land. in that event it not a good outcome.
we are still in disbelief over this - if you knew those two you'd understand the despair over this. the family will have a tough one on this.
i likely will be in mulege next weekend if my plane is available. if not i'm headed elsewhere.
formerly Ordained in Rev. Ewing\'s Church by Mail - busted on tax fraud.......
Now joined L. Ron Hoover\'s church of Appliantology
\"Remember there is a big difference between kneeling down and bending over....\"
www.facebook.com/michael.l.goering |
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sayonara
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that is too sad. I hope they are found soon. Please keep us posted of any developments.
Good luck!
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