Local pilots helped in search for downed plane

The body of a novice pilot missing since Nov. 13 was found in the wreckage of his small plane Wednesday morning in a remote area of Clearwater County, southwest of Bagley.

Andrew Lindberg, 32, had taken off from Airlake Airport near Lakeville about 5 p.m. Friday headed toward Hallock, 400 miles away, where he planned to hunt deer hunt with his father.

Lindberg was a coworker and good friend of Lance Juffer, son of rural Hutchinson residents Sandy and Marvin Juffer.

At least a dozen members of the Hutchinson Composite Squadron of the Minnesota Wing of the Civil Air Patrol were heavily involved in the search since Sunday, squadron commander Karl Heisel said Wednesday.

The squadron’s operations officer, Bernie Knutson, was on duty at the search headquarters Wednesday morning as incident commander when the crash site was reached.

Knutson said the Minnesota Wing of the CAP, as well as units from North Dakota and South Dakota, flew 157 missions in recent days as part of the search. In addition, there were 47 sorties of the ground search teams.

“This is so sad,” Sandy Juffer said Wednesday when she was told Lindberg’s body had been found. “My son fished with him all the time and they worked together at Metropolitan Life in Bloomington.”

Read more of this story in the Leader’s Nov. 19 print edition.

(Terry Davis is a Hutchinson Leader staff writer. E-mail him at davis@hutchinsonleader.com.)