Flight To Las Vegas Missing

A light plane with three people aboard vanished on a flight from Everett’s Paine Field to Las Vegas, and snowstorms in northern California were hampering the search, officials said Sunday evening.

Radar and radio contact with the Beech 55 Baron was lost at 10:47 p.m. Friday as the twin-engine plane was over Cedarville, Calif., said Gary Mayer, a Federal Aviation Administration duty officer.

Weather in the area was snowy and windy at the time, said Ray Tippo, a California Civil Air Patrol spokesman.

The pilot, Gary Sevensen, 35, of Seattle, filed a flight plan to the north Las Vegas airport and was experienced in flying by instruments, Tippo said.

The identities of the two passengers weren’t known, FAA spokesman Tim Pile said.

Continued snowstorms kept CAP search planes from taking off over the weekend, and National Guard planes were unable to detect any signal from the missing plane’s emergency locator transmitter, Tippo added.

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