Body of missing pilot found on Hamburg Mountain

HARDYSTON-Late on Thursday afternoon, June 23, ground search crews found the body of missing pilot Roland A. Melanson of Wantage in the wreckage of his yellow single-engine Cessna 182P. The plane had been missing since early Sunday morning, June 19, when Melanson took off from the Sussex airport for Sikorsky Memorial Airport near Bridgeport, Conn., where his daughter, Kate lives. Shortly after taking off, the aircraft vanished from the radar screens somewhere near Silver Lake. According to Hardyston police, the breakthrough for the search came when a Westchester County, N.Y. police helicopter pilot glimpsed the yellow fuselage of the downed aircraft through a gap in the trees. Helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft had intercrossed the same location for the past five days, but had been unable to see the plane through the dense oak forest. The search and rescue mission for the 58-year-old pilot and his single-engine plane focused on the densely forested 2,774-acre landscape that reaches from Route 23 northwards into Vernon. U.S. Air Force radar technicians had been able to help isolate the probable location of the plane by verifying and enhancing the original radar data. Immediately after the helicopter pilot notified the ground crew, which included firemen equipped with chainsaws, rescuers began their ascent to reach the crash site through swamps, mud, boulders, and nearly impenetrable underbrush. At the crash site, the crew found the fuselage of the plane lying wrong way up, with the nose cone and propeller severed. The cockpit had been destroyed. "We've had over 75 volunteers on the scene, among them trained Air Force auxiliary, people from the county Office of Emergency Management, and members of the state police and our own police and fire departments," said Township manager Marianne Smith. Smith commended the courage and steadfastness of the rescue crew, which included state Forest Fire Service and search-and-rescue teams from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Mayor Kenneth Kievit said that Hardyston will official recognize the workers for their courage and steadfastness. Hardyston and Vernon township police departments secured the sight through Thursday night. On Friday, June 24th, FAA personnel, the national transportation safety board, and the New Jersey department of transportation took over the investigation of the crash and the recovery of the wreckage. A Hardyston official spokesman said that Melanson's family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to New Jersey Search and Rescue or to the Sussex food bank.