OAKLAND (BCN) -- A 78-year-old Oakland man was found dead Friday morning in the wreckage of his motorglider aircraft on a mountain in central Idaho, according to Idaho Transportation Department spokesman Mel Coulter.
Thierry Thys was found dead shortly after 10:20 a.m. PDT by a search and rescue team on the White Knob Mountain Range at an elevation of about 9,250 feet, according to Coulter.
Thys was with a group of glider pilots who took off Wednesday from an airport in Arco, Idaho, a town in the central part of the state, Coulter said.
At about 9 p.m. PDT Wednesday, the group notified the aeronautics division of the Transportation Department that Thys had not returned from the excursion.
The Civil Air Patrol, a group of pilots trained to look for downed or missing aircraft, searched for Thys and the missing aircraft.
At about 6:50 p.m. PDT Thursday, shortly before they were going to suspend the search for the day, the crew spotted what they believed to be the crash site, located about 23 miles north of Arco, according to Coulter.
Friday morning, the Idaho Air National Guard dispatched a helicopter to Arco, which transported a Custer County search and rescue team to the site.
When the crew arrived they found Thys, who had apparently died on impact when his 1998 Stemme S10-VT aircraft crashed on the mountain.
The aircraft is a high-performance glider that has a 75-foot wingspan and engine-driven propeller that folds into the nose of the vehicle once gliding altitude is reached. The German-manufactured plane is capable of operating at altitudes of up to 30,000 feet, according to Coulter.
Thys was a veteran pilot who had extensive experience in a variety of aircraft and reportedly held the distance record for glider planes, according to the Idaho Transportation Department.
In 2003, Thys and a friend flew in a motorized glider from Carson City, Nev., To the southern tip of South America, and then back to Nevada.
An investigation of the crash is pending by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
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