Missionary pilot suffers VFR into IMC accident in Honduras
 

Issaquah missionary's body found in Honduras
Wreckage of man's plane discovered earlier on peak

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

Army rescuers found the body of a missing missionary from Washington state Wednesday, the day after the wreckage of his small plane was discovered on a mountainside in western Honduras, federal police said.

Michael Hines, 66, of Issaquah took off Saturday from El Salvador in a small Cessna for La Ceiba, a coastal town 200 miles north of Tegucigalpa. He never arrived.

The pilot's U.S.-registered plane (N6347V) was found Tuesday on the slopes of Celaque, Honduras' tallest mountain.

Julio Eduardo Espinal, a representative for the federal police, said Hines was flying at about 7,000 feet in dense fog when he hit a cliff.

The plane largely disintegrated on impact and the pilot was thrown a great distance, Espinal said. The body was found at the bottom of a 300-foot-deep depression in the mountain.

Hines worked on philanthropic missions dedicated to helping abandoned children in Honduras and El Salvador.

His daughter, Mary Ann Nunez, said Hines was an Assemblies of God missionary who had spent the past 17 years in Honduras and had been ministering around Latin America for more than four decades.

She said Hines was beloved across Central America and flew low and slowly over remote villages in order to preach from the air through his plane's sound system.

According to an Assemblies of God news release, Hines' wife, Karen, recently flew to Honduras from California, where she had been receiving cancer treatments.

"It's been a difficult number of days for us all," said Cary Tidwell, Assemblies of God world missions administrator.

"Mike as a husband, father, friend and incredible voice for Christ in Latin America will be greatly missed."

Funeral plans are being made in La Ceiba, Honduras, where Hines served as minister.

http://www.elheraldo.hn/fotos/13507.jpg

Links to Honduran newspapers covering article:
El Heraldo
http://www.laprensahn.com/nacionales...fecha=20040805

Very sad. I just returned from TGU and an AA pilot that flew us down said another AA pilot was flying a prop out of La Ceiba and crashed, as well. Aero Honduras - do you have any info?