An Air Force specialist slid down a helicopter cable to grab wreckage from Capt. Craig Button's A-10 attack jet from a rugged, windswept mountainside Wednesday.
In two flights to the 13,365-foot Gold Dust Peak, members of the Air Force para-rescue team brought back pieces of the aircraft and confirmation that it was Button's jet that slammed into the mountainside."I can tell you now that we have made positive identification that these are pieces of the A-10 (Thunderbolt) aircraft," Air Force Maj. Gen. Nels Running said Wednesday night.
But he said there was no sign of the plane's pilot.
"I don't know if Capt. Button was with the aircraft or was not with the aircraft, so I cannot talk about remains," Running said.
A second team of four searchers was helicoptered Wednesday evening to the mountain, where they spent the night in hopes of continuing the search Thursday morning.
"Their mission is to go up and see if they can find any remains," Col. Denver Pletcher said, noting the four have cellular phones and other communications gear and all are experienced high-altitude climbers.
The plan was to fly them out Thursday, but if they had to they could walk to an interstate, he said.
The recovery of wreckage Wednesday had to be made from a narrow, ledgelike feature about 12,500 feet up on the nearly 80-degree northwest face of the mountain that is still covered by snow and ice.
In the first flight, Tech. Sgt. Ishmael Antonio was lowered from the team's heavy-lift MH-53 helicopter, but he carried only a 30-minute supply of oxygen for the high-altitude search, said Lt. Col. Robin Chandler.
"They had to get in and out in 30 minutes. By the time he was hoisted down, was able to grab what he grabbed and get back up, he was on the verge of using up all his oxygen," said Chandler.
One piece of wreckage is plastic-insulated tubing and wires, described as part of a device used to control airplane flaps, and the other is metal with the markings of turbine parts made by General Electric.
Those markings were used to confirm that the wreckage was from Button's A-10.
Antonio tried to pick up the largest piece of wreckage, but it was bigger than him and he couldn't free it from the snow, Running said. He retrieved the two smaller pieces instead.
Wednesday's find closed at least one chapter in Button's mysterious disappearance April 2, when the 32-year-old pilot flew away from a three-plane training formation en route from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson to the Barry M. Goldwater bombing range in southern Arizona.