Justin Winfrey, a 43-year-old Bay Area business owner, was last seen October 23, 2019, when he and 27-year-old nurse Kayla Rodriguez left Novato in his red-and-white single-engine Piper Arrow, tail number N4958J, bound for Mendocino County. Their last known location was Shelter Cove on the evening of October 24, 2019; after dining at a local restaurant they departed about 9 p.m. intending to return to San Francisco. Radar lost contact with the aircraft shortly thereafter, roughly five miles off the coast near Fort Bragg and Wheeler.

A large land and sea search covered difficult terrain and deep water along the Lost Coast, but after two weeks no wreckage or remains were found and the search was suspended. Family and friends have continued seeking information, and both Winfrey and Rodriguez are presumed to have perished in a suspected crash, though no bodies or the plane have been recovered.

Did anyone in the area around Shelter Cove or the Fort Bragg–Wheeler coast see the plane that night or notice anything unusual?