Searchers Now Seek 2 Missing Planes in Desert : Rescuers: Effort is renewed for flight that disappeared Nov. 14, in same area that a small aircraft vanished Friday.

After calling off a weeks-long search for a Fullerton-bound airplane with five people aboard, the Civil Air Patrol has resumed the effort as part a new search for another small plane reported missing Friday night from an airport in Redlands, authorities said.

The renewed search was prompted when a two-passenger fiberglass plane flown by Lloyd Sager, a San Bernardino County reserve sheriff’s deputy, disappeared after leaving the airport in Redlands for Fullerton on Friday afternoon. Sager, 62, was the only person aboard, sheriff’s officials said.

The Civil Air Patrol and sheriff’s officials dispatched five search planes and four helicopters Saturday to scour a 50-mile radius around the Redlands airport. The search was called off after about 10 hours, with no sighting of either plane.

Nevertheless, further searching buoyed spirits among the families of four county residents, who were aboard the missing Cessna 336 Skymaster, and their pilot. The plane disappeared Nov. 14 on a flight from Bullhead City, Ariz., to Fullerton.

The families met Saturday to establish a makeshift base of operations at the Placentia home of Norma Draeger, mother of missing passenger Kathy Bird, 33.

“We are overjoyed, not that (another) plane is lost, but that the search will continue,” said Draeger, who noted that Sager’s plane took “almost the same route that our kids are on.”

In addition to Bird, the others aboard the missing Cessna were Bird’s husband, Jeff Bird, 32, of Fullerton; Bradley Bird, 33, of Placentia; Natalie Erickson, 19 of Placentia, and their pilot, Richard Niemela, 37, of La Mirada.

Saturday’s search concentrated on a much smaller area than the previous effort, authorities said.

“It is not exactly the same search--this one won’t cover as wide an area as the other one,” San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Sgt. James Singley said. “Right now, our priority is in the airplane that is missing since (Friday) night.”

The previous three-week search by CAP volunteer pilots ended Wednesday after covering more than 20,000 square miles of remote desert, restricted military areas and mountainous terrain in California, Arizona and Nevada.

Singley said Sheriff’s Department and CAP officials will meet with the families of the missing county passengers to decide how to coordinate efforts.

Draeger said the families have received offers of help from private pilots. “I have had a couple of pilots I don’t know and a couple of friends who are pilots who offered to fly if we would pay for the gas,” she said. “So we are putting together a little fund to help finance family members who want to continue the search.”

Draeger said their efforts will be based on the search grids CAP used before calling off the search last week.

“We wanted to put our thoughts together,” Draeger said of the Saturday meeting at her home. “We have been working diligently but separately.”

Niemela’s parents and Erickson’s parents have also been up in search planes over the vast Mojave Desert nearly every day for the past few weeks, said Draeger, who has also gone up as an observer in planes with private pilots since the disappearance.

Draeger said enduring three weeks without a clue to the whereabouts of their children has been agonizing for all of the parents.

“We are our own support group,” Draeger said. “Everybody tells me how strong I am, but I feel like I am coming apart.”