Crews are extensively searching land and waters for any signs of the missing Malaysian Airlines jet. It's a job that Fresno's Civil Air Patrol knows all too well, as the primary agency assigned to search for downed and missing planes.
Fresno Civil Air Squadron Commander Rick Finkelstein says, "I feel bad for the people that are sitting there in anguish waiting for any kind of closure."
Finkelstein knows just how important closure following a tragedy is. His brother in law was killed two years ago, after crashing a commercial plane into a volcano in Indonesia. The wreckage was found right away, unlike the situation with Malaysian airlines, where the search for a missing jet and 239 people, is now in it's fourth day.
"It becomes very tedious at times and fatigue comes into affect when you do that type of search," says Finkelstein.
Finkelstein is the commander of Fresno's Civil Air Squadron. The agency handles search and rescue for missing planes above water, often times relying on high tech GPS systems and an emergency signal from a plane's little black box.
Sometimes however, there is no emergency signal, as is the case with the Malaysian Airlines jet. In those situations, Finkelstein says he and his crew then revert to a grid search; scouring the entire path the pilot may have taken.
The crew uses an aeronautical chart, separated into 15 by 15 mile grids, which map out a visual search pattern to make sure no ground is left untouched. Finkelstein says the most important part of a search is not giving up.
"We're out there to save a life or to give closure to the family so we all keep the mission in mind of what we're doing."