Fleet of Planes Fail to Locate Missing Cessna With 5 Aboard : Travel: More than 70 patrol pilots participate in search for craft that disappeared on flight from Arizona to Fullerton on the same day a snowstorm hit the mountains.

FULLERTON —  More than 70 Civil Air Patrol planes from two states came up empty-handed Saturday after searching a 20,000-square-mile area for a missing twin-engine Cessna with five people aboard.

An additional 20 aircraft joined the hunt Saturday, two days after the plane began a flight from Bullhead City, Ariz., to Fullerton just as a major storm hit with snow, rain and sleet.

Civil Air Patrol officials said the weather could have complicated flying conditions for pilot Richard Niemela, 37, of La Mirada. Niemela was returning from a pleasure trip with four Orange County residents as passengers.

Authorities called off the search at dusk Saturday after covering a 100-mile swath from Fullerton to Arizona.

“Everything has been covered,” said Nancy Brady, a spokeswoman for the California CAP. “We will be going over the same area tomorrow.”

Each plane attempted to search a 15-square-mile area above the lower Colorado River Valley, the California desert and into Arizona. With CAP officials coordinating from Palm Springs Airport, Brady said more than 160 people participated.

The passengers have been identified as Kathy Bird, 33, and her husband, Jeff Bird, 32, of Fullerton; Jeff’s brother, Bradley Bird, 33, of Placentia; and Natalie Erickson, 19, of Placentia.

Air patrol officials questioned Niemela’s decision to take off in bad weather.

“I’m not going to second judge here,” said Ray Hendrickson, who is in charge of rescue efforts in Palm Springs. “He certainly could have chosen a better time to go over the mountains.”

Searchers said they scoured a wide area because Niemela could have diverted his flight path to avoid the turbulent weather.

“There is no clear-cut flight path, so we have to search the entire area,” Arizona CAP Capt. Nena Wiley said.

Niemela and the four passengers were in a Cessna Skymaster that apparently left the Bullhead City area shortly after 3 p.m. They had been expected to land at Fullerton Municipal Airport late Thursday afternoon.

Federal Aviation Administration officials said Niemela did not file a flight plan before leaving Bullhead City. Civil Air Patrol officials said he had telephoned Prescott, Ariz., for a weather report shortly before noon Thursday.

Wiley said Niemela was a commercial-grade pilot with 400 hours of commercial instruction, but he was not instrument graded. In addition, Wiley said, he had not yet flown for hire, although he had attained the commercial rating.

Niemela’s father, Dawayne Niemela, 55, of La Mirada, said on Saturday that his son was a good pilot and given an emergency situation, would have tried to land the plane safely in the desert.

“The waiting is pretty rough,” Dawayne Niemela said. “He a good pilot; if it was getting rough out there, hopefully he set it down and is waiting for people to pick him up. That’s the basic rules of flying, put it down when it gets rough.”