The plane of missing pilot Michael Martin was found near Mount Jefferson in Nevada on Saturday, Jan. 18, the Nye County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
The experienced licensed pilot, 65, departed in his 1968 Piper PA-28-300 airplane from North Las Vegas on Thursday, Jan. 2, and did not tell anyone, per KSNV.
Cathy Martin, his wife of 40 years, previously told The Las Vegas Review-Journal on Friday, Jan. 17, that she and her husband had “a little tiff” on Wednesday, Jan. 1.
On Thursday, Jan. 2, Martin took off at 10:51 a.m., but his flight transponder stopped transmitting at 11:15 a.m. Around an hour later, at 12:06 p.m., Martin’s daughter-in-law, Kathleen Martin, said he was traceable near Tonopah, Nev., per The Las Vegas Review-Journal. Twenty minutes later, his iPad and his Apple Watch last showed him near Mount Jefferson, which is around 50 miles northeast of Tonopah and 281 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Once his family had not heard from him by Sunday, Jan. 5, they reported he was missing.
While authorities suspended search and rescue operations on Thursday, Jan. 16, Nye County Director of Emergency Management Scott Lewis told the Review-Journal that a game warden found the plane using special glasses on Saturday, Jan. 18. The area was covered by snow during an earlier search.
The Nye County Sheriff’s Office wrote in the Jan. 21 announcement, “Based on photos of the crashed plane, there would be no chance of survival.”
Lewis told the Las Vegas Review-Journal after he saw the crash site that the aircraft sustained “significant damage.”
“We just need to get the resources and get them up there as quickly as we can. It was very windy during our search just now, very treacherous area, very steep area. We have a lot of things to overcome, but we’re working on it,” Lewis said.
Lewis said that the team needed to wait for helicopters to reach the scene, which is inaccessible by foot due to its elevated nature.
Since Michael’s aircraft was found, his daughter, Katie Martin-Perry, asked the public to help ask authorities and government officials to find him in a Facebook post on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
“We need everyone, family and friends to start calling the governor’s office to demand that resources be spent to recover his body. They know the location, they just don’t have the will. They need to hear from constituents,” she wrote.
“Nye County is stating that it could be several weeks until they have the resources to reach this site and recover Michael,” Martin’s daughter-in-law, Kathleen, wrote on Facebook. “We are asking that everyone who reads this take a minute to call or email their state and federal representatives to ask that resources be expedited for this effort so that we can bring Michael home and lay him to rest. Please help us end the agony we have been in during this process.”
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A representative for Nye County Emergency Management did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for more information on Tuesday.
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