The Utah County Search and Rescue Team began sweeping the south end of the county Wednesday morning for a missing ultralight plane.
The pilot, Eric Farley, 31, Orem, took off from Spanish Fork Airport at 2 p.m. Tuesday. He was last seen flying over Lincoln Beach, on the south shore of Utah Lake, around 3:30 p.m. He was wearing a black jacket and blue helmet.An ultralight is a motorized hang glider with an aluminum body the pilot sits in. The plane has a 150-mile radius and can fly at an altitude of 100 feet. It is not equipped with lights for night flying and has a limited fuel capacity.
More than 20 searchers gathered at Spanish Fork Airport Wednesday morning, including members of the sheriff's Search and Rescue Team and the volunteer Utah County Jeep Patrol. They planned to search along the pilot's known travel routes - Hobble Creek and Spanish Fork Canyons and around West Mountain. Three planes were assisting in the search and more were on the way from the Civil Air Patrol.