On July 18, 1992, 37-year-old electrician Raymond Dewayne Sears boarded a white-and-brown 1978 Cessna with his wife and another couple for a weekend trip from Battle Creek to Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. The plane, piloted by friend Tom Lammon, took off about 10:30 a.m. and flew a common route over the Leelanau Peninsula. Around noon, roughly 35 miles from Beaver Island and preparing to land, the aircraft disappeared from radar with no reported indication of trouble moments before contact was lost.

State and local authorities, the Civil Air Patrol, and the U.S. Coast Guard mounted an extensive air, land, and water search. No significant wreckage was recovered, though on August 3 a small aircraft tire and several pieces of fiberglass matching the Cessna’s color washed up near Good Hart. Despite renewed searches, no further trace of the plane or the four people on board has been found.

The families remain without answers about what happened that day. Did anyone in the Leelanau or Good Hart area see the aircraft or the wreckage in July 1992?