‘Big gang’ continues search for lost plane

Family and friends continued searching Tuesday for three Hawaii residents in their 20s who were flying in a Cessna 172 that disappeared Friday near Molokai, and will resume their efforts today.

“There’s a very big gang looking in the mountains, the shoreline, and some drones flying all over along the coastline and in some ravines that nobody can get to,” Ben Thomas, father of Whitney Thomas, a passenger and girlfriend of the pilot, said Tuesday.

“Every day we’re trying a new area,” he said. “I just need some kind of closure — all three families.”

The Coast Guard and the Maui Fire Department suspended their search Sunday for the plane, which had Thomas, pilot Michael Childers and his longtime friend John Mizuno aboard.

The plane left Molokai Airport for Honolulu, but disappeared off the radar about 4 miles off Ilio Point on the northwestern tip of Molokai. The Coast Guard was notified at about 7 p.m. Friday, and a search began.

The Maui Fire Department and the National Park Service joined in covering 1,400 square miles across ground and sea. The agencies suspended their search Sunday night after no trace was found.

Friends came with boats from Kaneohe to assist in the search, Thomas said Tuesday. “Some guys will be diving in the water tomorrow.”

“My daughter was loved by many,” he said.

Thomas’ friend started a GoFundMe account, which as of Tuesday night had raised more than $20,000 for all three.

Co-workers of Mizuno, an electrician at MK Electric, donated to the search fund, and the company matched their donations for a total of $3,500.

“We just saw him on Friday,” said a co-worker, who declined to be named, at a company lunch. “Nobody knew he was going. Some of the boys are saying it was a spur-of-the-moment thing — hop island and come back.

“Everybody was pretty devastated,” she said. “Everybody can’t go (to help in the search), but we wanted to donate.”

She added, “He was a really good boy. Anything we could do to help with the search was what the owner wanted. We’re trying to hope for the best. We’re trying to stay optimistic. That’s the focus.”

Mizuno was a 2008 graduate of Moanalua High School, and he knew Childers since at least middle school and worked with him at Haleiwa Joe’s.

“John was a very gentle soul,” said his high school teacher and class adviser, Shauna Hirota, who was also a friend of his mother, Joan, who worked at the school. “He was very kind. He was friends with everyone. He was on the quiet side. … He was the sweetest kid, never did bad to anyone.”

Hirota, who has kept in close touch with Mizuno and other students, said another student, Irwin Bonus, went to help in the search.

“People of Molokai have been awesome,” said Hirota, who has been in touch with Bonus. “The people of Molokai are amazing. They ask, ‘Are you looking for the kids?’”

“They took them into their homes,” she said. “Total strangers fed them dinner, had them stay with them. They took them into the hiking and hunting areas.”

All three families have friends and family on Molokai, Hirota said.

“It’s crazy how these three individuals touched so many lives,” she said.

Childers, a server at Haleiwa Joe’s Seafood Grill, met Thomas, a cocktail waitress, said Trystan Kahapea, kitchen manager and prep cook at the Kaneohe restaurant.

“They were very nice people, always happy,” he said.

Kahapea said of Childers, “That was his dream, to be a pilot.”