Update 18 on Missing Plane - keep praying!

Many have asked for continued updates on the missing plane my girlfriend in Tennessee brought to our attention through her "Nevrdun News". As we continue to pray let's pray specifically for HOPE - that the survivors will not have lost hope of their rescue and that the search team will not loose hope that there are survivors. Our God is a God of Hope, all He asks is that we trust Him. He brings hope to the hopeless and help to the helpless.

This morning's email:

Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 6:48 AM
Subject: Nevrdun News - Prayer Request Update 18


We'll let you know when we hear more from Wes, but for now here are a couple of articles pulled from the Internet.

From Nov. 16 guyanachronicleonline.com . . .
Missing aircraft search area widens
By Sharief Khan

THE search area has widened for the light survey aircraft that disappeared in the Mazaruni earlier this month but no sign of the missing plane has emerged, officials said yesterday.

Police and other officials are to check reports that miners and other persons heard the sound of an aircraft further northwest of where the aircraft was operating when it went missing, they said.

Foot patrols mounted by a Guyana Defense Force (GDF) Special Forces team backed by personnel from firms linked to the aircraft have been scouring an identified area surrounded by a mountain range.

Police are also checking with persons in Chi-Chi who said they heard the sound of an aircraft in the area around the time the plane went missing, an aviation official said.

Aiding the search are other light aircraft taking high resolution pictures of the area for detailed analysis, officials said.

The Special Forces team was inserted into the area by helicopter Sunday and was joined by the others for a more detailed ground sweep within set boundaries, Mr. Zulficar Mohamed, Director of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority told the Sunday Chronicle.

The ground party is following lines, including creeks and valleys, parallel to the flight path of the aircraft while it was doing the survey, he said.

He said the area over which the aircraft was to have been doing the survey includes the Eping River gorge near the Mazaruni River, and two valleys between the Merume Mountains and the Tomasing Mountains.

He said the search has now been widened further northwest of this area.

Two Beechcraft aircrafts outfitted with specialised equipment, including heat-sensing cameras have done sweeps over the area with no sighting.

The United States-registered Beech King aircraft, registration number N87V, went missing while conducting geophysical surveys for uranium deposits.

A Rescue Coordination Centre has been established at the Control Tower at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri.

On board the missing aircraft were Captain James Wesley Barker, 28, a U.S. citizen, First Officer Chris Parris, 23, also a U.S. citizen and Geophysics Technician, and Patrick Murphy, 20, a Canadian citizen.

The aircraft was chartered from Dynamic Aviation Group Inc. by Terraquest Ltd to do the geophysical surveys on behalf of Prometheus Resources (Guyana) Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian uranium company, U308 Corp.

Prometheus has contracted a helicopter from Suriname to help in the search.

U3O8 Corp last September announced that the Guyana Government had granted Prometheus Resources Inc. a one-year extension on the company's reconnaissance permits for uranium exploration in Guyana.

The company said it contracted Terraquest Limited, a specialist in airborne geophysics based in Markham, Ontario, to conduct a geophysical survey in the interior of Guyana under the permission of the Guyana authorities.

Terraquest contracted a twin-engine, turboprop Beechcraft King Air from Dynamic Aviation Inc. of Bridgewater, Virginia to undertake the airborne survey, it said in a statement received here.

And from caribdaily.com . . .
Missing aircraft…
November 17, 2008 | By knews | Filed Under News Crew may have perished - official

It’s been 15 heart-wrenching days since a U.S. twin-engine aircraft and its three-man crew disappeared over the Mazaruni jungle. It has also been a week since the search team picked up any signals from the plane’s Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), and an official from one
of the companies that are coordinating the search and rescue operation says that this may indicate that the crash victims have not survived their ordeal. “The signal has not been heard since Monday, and this may be a sign that they have perished, and we now have to recover them,” the official, who declined to be identified, told Kaieteur News yesterday. “Even if you are optimistic, you also have to be pragmatic.”

And Azad Khan, an official for Prometheus Resources Guyana Inc., said that the team is still conducting its ground search in the area where the aircraft is believed to have crashed. “We are still conducting the ground search. We intend to search for the next month; we are in this for
the long haul.” He had suggested that the intermittent signals from the ELT could mean that a survivor was switching it on and off to conserve on battery power.

But search and rescue expert and veteran pilot Captain Gerry Gouveia believes that the time is “fast approaching” when the search will have to be called off. “It’s very difficult at this time (for the company with which they are employed). They are spending millions searching for these
people. They don’t want to give up. “I don’t rule out the possibility of the crew being alive. People have been known to survive in harsh territory. “I don’t believe in giving up, but…there comes a point when a decision has to be taken, and I believe that time is fast approaching.
“My heart goes out to the people conducting the search, especially their friends. It is a heart-wrenching thing.”

Captain Gouveia described the Mazaruni area where the ill-fated aircraft vanished as harsh territory, and said that any survivors would face several challenges. “The challenges are exposure to the elements, rain, being wet in the jungle most of the time, running out of supplies; and the biggest thing they may be running out of is hope, if you sense they have stopped searching for you.”

Captain Gouveia knows first hand the odds that the missing crew faces. In 1994, Gouveia was flying some eleven miles west of Timehri when he crashed. He spent 15 agonising hours, including nightfall, in the jungle, before he was finally rescued. “The night after they searched
and could not find me and the place silent, I felt myself sinking into a state of depression. A sense of hopelessness swept over me, but I felt a burst of excitement the next day when I heard the planes overhead. “I was very lucky. I was testimony to the fact that people can crash and
survive.”

However, others have not been so fortunate, and their bodies have never been found. He recalled that one pilot crashed in the Mazaruni jungle some two decades ago. Despite a massive air and land search by Civil Aviation Department and the army, he was never found. Another plane, with its pilot and about six European passengers, disappeared while flying between Anna Regina and Mount Roraima. A third disappeared while flying to Kaieteur.

The ill-fated twin-engine Beechcraft King Air disappeared two weeks ago while doing uranium survey work for Prometheus Resources Guyana Inc., a subsidiary of U308 Corp. of Toronto. Those missing are pilot James Barker, First Officer Chris Paris, and Canadian technician Patrick
Murphy.