Catherine Sears, known as Cathy, was 35 when she disappeared on July 18, 1992, while flying to Beaver Island, Michigan, with her husband Ray Sears and another couple, Tom and Peggy Lammon. The four departed Battle Creek in a single-engine 1978 Cessna 172 (tail number N4500E) piloted by Tom Lammon. Around noon, about 35 miles from Beaver Island near the Leelanau Peninsula as the plane prepared to land, the aircraft vanished from radar.

A wide search followed involving state and county authorities, the Civil Air Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard, and families joined the effort. On August 3 a small aircraft tire and fiberglass pieces matching the Cessna’s color were found floating near Good Hart, which prompted focused searches there, but no wreckage or the occupants were recovered. The official investigation could not determine what happened and no cause for the disappearance was established.

What remains unclear is why no more debris or a wreckage field was ever located despite searches and the isolated pieces found; that gap has left the family without answers. If anyone has information about the flight, the plane N4500E, or being near the Leelanau Peninsula or Good Hart area that day, please come forward.