WENTWORTH, N.H. -- For nearly three years, the disappearance of a Learjet on a rainy, foggy Christmas Eve confounded searchers and was a painful mystery for families of the two pilots.
Finally, after fruitless searches in the thick New Hampshire woods, a forester came across the jet's mangled wreckage on Thursday, providing some closure but reprising the tragedy for relatives.Aviation investigators planned to head to the site Saturday. Authorities did not know whether bodies had been found.
Hermance Hayes, whose son Patrick was a co-pilot on the flight, said discovery of the wreckage was "like starting a fire all over again, like Day 1."
She said the find provided peace in "knowing that finally it came to an end, and not wondering day after day, day after day: Where are you? Where are you, Where can you be?"
The plane disappeared during its approach to the Lebanon airport on Dec. 24, 1996. On Christmas morning, planes, helicopters and hikers began what would become the largest search in state history.
Pilots Johan Schwartz, 31, of Westport, Conn., and Hayes, 30, of Clinton, Conn., were en route from Bridgeport, Conn., to pick up a New Hampshire family for a holiday trip. They were making a second runway approach.
The official search was called off in early 1997 because of winter, but volunteers continued to look.
In July, teams from New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire spent 10 days searching 3,452-foot Carr Mountain. The area was suggested by a group of Dartmouth College engineering students who analyzed the case.
The forester found the wreckage while surveying remote and private land in Wentworth, said Ron Alie of the state's Fish and Game agency. The landowner informed officials of the discovery Friday.