A search off the coast of San Diego for seven Coast Guard crew members based in Sacramento and two Marines will be called off Sunday morning unless crew members are found, the father of one of the missing aircrew told The Bee.
John Moletzky, father of missing crew member Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason S. Moletzsky of Norristown, Pa., said his family has been informed that the search will be called off Sunday morning.
"You hold out hope," Moletzky said. "But being an old aviation man myself, it's hard. I lost a great kid. We were father and son, but I also lost my best friend."
A Coast Guard official in Sacramento could not confirm that the search would be stopped.
Jason Moletzky and six other crew members aboard the C-130 have been missing since their plane collided with a Marine helicopter Thursday night while searching for a missing boater near San Clemente Island, off the Southern California coast.
On Saturday, boats and aircraft from as far away as Hawaii searched an area of sea that is 644 square miles - roughly six times the size of the city of Sacramento - in hopes of finding the nine missing aircrew.
Coast Guard officials reported clear skies and calm seas in the area as the search reached its second day. The search is concentrating on a debris field roughly 50 miles off the coast of San Diego, the Associated Press reported.
The C-130, based out of the McClellan Air Park in North Highlands, crashed at 7:10 p.m. Thursday after colliding with a Marine AH-1W helicopter that was on a training mission.
"The search will continue until the captain feels there is no chance of survivability," Petty Officer 2nd Class Jetta Disco said Saturday morning. "It's quite a big search effort. We have all the assets we possibly can out there."
Meanwhile, Coast Guard and Marines officials released the names of the missing crew members.
The missing include the C-130's commander, Lt. Cmdr. Che J. Barnes, 35, of Capay.
Barnes participated in aircraft aerobatic competitions in the area and was in charge of the newsletter for the Northern California Aerobatic Club. He flew his own Pitts s1s, which he parked at his brother's hangar in Davis, said Cory Lovell, president of the Northern California Aerobatic Club.
A photo of Barnes has been posted on a San Francisco aviation buff's blog. "Che was a really great person and I'm sure we will all remember him for what he did best," wrote the blogger, Evan Isenstein-Brand.
"He was always volunteering to do stuff," Lovell said. "In the last six months, he was working a lot for the Coast Guard, but he would still take time out to do the newsletter."
Also missing is the plane's flight engineer, Chief Petty Officer John F. Seidman, 43, of Carmichael.
Jennifer Wiegandt Seidman told the AP she said hopes her husband was wearing a protective dry suit when he entered the chilly Pacific Ocean. Seidman is a flight engineer with a 23-year career in the Coast Guard.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.