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Fighter Jet Rides Michigan - 21 years ago, a plane preparing for the Cherry Fest Air Show disappeared. The unexplained mystery of the lost Albatross. By Al Parker | June 29, 2019

As thousands of cherry-loving tourists and locals crane their necks skyward to watch the National Cherry Festival Air Show, few know the tragedy and mystery that surrounded the event 21 years ago.

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On July 3, 1998, Don Schaller, of Quincy, Illinois, was piloting a two-seat Aero L-39 Albatross on a practice flight in preparation for an air show. A veteran pilot, the 48-year-old Schaller was familiar with event flight routes and admired the beauty of northern Michigan.

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Don Rodriguez, a flight instructor at Northwestern Michigan College, flew the plane, a military aircraft built in Czechoslovakia and used to train Soviet and other Eastern European pilots.

"I don't think there was anything that would have stopped him from that ride," Rodriguez's wife, Patricia Delonnay, told reporters later.

According to radar, after taking off from Cherry Capital Airport, Schaller headed north. Soon, he had a ship about 27 miles away and headed for Cherry Capital Airport. The last radio broadcast is at 6 pm. Flight controllers expected to hear from Schaller again when he was about five miles away.

Around 21.00. Coast Guard helicopters were dispatched from Traverse City and a search began. Over the next few days, helicopter crews, equipped with night vision goggles, scanned the waters of Lake Michigan. They were accompanied by a Canadian C-130 cargo plane and a Blue Angels C-130, nicknamed "Fat Albert."

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A Coast Guard vessel, along with aircraft, repeatedly searched the area between North Manitou and South Fox Islands, but found no sign of the Albatross. No grease, no dirt, nothing.

The research area is 1,900 square kilometers. Michigan State Police are on the Upper Peninsula, near Lake Brevort, southwest of St.

The Albatros was believed to be equipped with parachutes and ejection seats, but Coast Guard officials said those seats may not have worked. The plane is not known to have been equipped with any kind of indigenous equipment.

At the time, Bob Buttleman was the NMC aviation program director. About 30 minutes after the Albatross took off, Buttleman took off as a passenger in a MiG-21 on a similar flight. Buttleman told reporters that if Rodriguez were to crash somewhere and survive, he's a man who would survive. "He was in the Air Force and the National Guard," he said.

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According to friends and family, Rodriguez loved all aspects of aviation, collecting memorabilia, magazines and even the 1946 J3 Cub he first flew in. Rodriguez's son, Doug Rodriguez, was 16 when he was solo on the same flight.

But the 57-year-old flight instructor said he had some concerns about flying over open water because he couldn't swim. While teaching hundreds of NMC students over the years, he managed to log nearly 10,000 flight hours, a number that would surpass the record of many commercial pilots. "He touched the lives of many students," Buttleman told reporters.

Ironically, Rodriquez and Delonnay had planned to attend their 40th high school reunion the night she disappeared. And July 3, 1998 was Schaller's 29th wedding anniversary.

Because of the Independence Day celebration, the story of the missing plane didn't hit the press until July 5th. Every day, news of the search appeared on television, radio and local newspapers.

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But there was no sign of the plane or the two people. On July 9, Michigan State Police called off the search.

"We've used up every lead we've got, every lead we've got," said MSP Lt. Mark Stewart, Traverse City post commander. "We have no debris... we have no oil spill." We are not closing our investigation and will continue to accept calls and tips, but we will suspend our search until we receive new information. We now believe the plane is in the northern waters of Lake Michigan.”

The Albatross and MiG-21, also at the air show, were owned by AirUSA, based in Quincy, Illinois. Both aircraft were used in many air shows and military training exercises. Company president Don Kirlin speculated at the time of the incident that a bird strike might have crippled the L-39's single engine.

"A bird big enough to eat an engine can kill an engine," Kirlin told reporters a few days after the plane's disappearance.

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Schaller's widow, Christine Schaller, echoed that, noting that Air Force Thunderbirds lost two engines to waterfowl this year. "The plane can catch a bird on the way," he told reporters in Illinois.

The search was carried out on water and air and so far the remains of the plane have not been found. Eyewitness reports say a man heard a plane passing overhead, followed by a loud explosion, which he described as fireworks, but never saw the plane.

In the last two decades, there have been other unsuccessful searches. Later in 1998, they conducted an underwater search using sonar-scan and found an object 30 meters long. Researchers thought it might be an airplane, but it was later confirmed to be a rock formation.

In 2008, another sonar search was conducted and what may be an aircraft was found at a depth of 450 feet. It was near a shipwreck in the 1950s. Divers were sent to identify the ship and possible aircraft. But he could not finish because of the depth.

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Fifteen years after the disappearance of her husband and high school sweetheart, Christine Schaller told reporters that she is glad to know that her husband died "doing what he loved." He believes that the plane will eventually be found and at least part of the mystery will be solved. "They are trying to record everything that goes into the lake," he said.

While newer versions replace older L-39s in service, thousands of Albatros remain in active service as trainers, and many find new homes with private warbird owners around the world. The trend is particularly pronounced in the US, where the $200,000-$300,000 price tag puts them in the range of affluent pilots looking for a fast and smart personal plane. According to the FAA, 255 L-39s were registered in the United States in 2012, the most recent year for which data was available.

Subscribe to Weeekender, our free weekly email with everything you need to plan a weekend in Northern Michigan! It wasn't what residents of the northern Michigan town of Alpena expected to see, but on Thursday evening, the Michigan Air National Guard put a plane on a four-lane highway.

And not just one plane landed on the runway, but four A-10 Thunderbolt attack planes and two C-146 Wolfhounds. The plane landed in Alpena and then took off from the M32. This was the first time that a US Air Force aircraft landed and took off from an American runway. The very unusual incident was part of the Thunder Landing Zone which is part of the Northern Strike exercise.

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The M32 was closed for 5 hours during Thunder Landing Zone. The annual Northern Strike training exercise, hosted by the Michigan National Guard at Camp Grayling and the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, continues through Aug. 14.

"Thunder LZ gave the pilots the opportunity to land in a difficult environment that they were not used to," said US Air Force Maj. Gen. Brian Wyrzykowski, mission commander for Thunder Landing Zone. "Our adversaries have weapons systems and advanced technology that they can use against us, so we must be able to operate effectively in difficult situations and be effective in these operations."

"The idea was to build confidence in what we think we can do. We've done it overseas before," said Lt. Gen. Matt Robins, commander of the Michigan Air National Guard's 127th Operations Group, from the Military He told the Times .

"Today, we put four A-10s and two C-146s on less than a mile of Highway 32 outside of Alpena," Robins said. "Today was our opportunity to put into practice what we have been training and doing. To engage in smart warfare work as part of the Northern Strike exercise."

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As part of the exercise, Air Force Special Operations Tactical Airmen swelled, captured the town of Alpena, and set up a highway section to help the aircraft land, refuel, rearm, and then take off. Therefore, they fought in a difficult environment.

During the exercise, the enemy attacked the simulated Air Force base and Air Force personnel were forced to take action.

"This is part of [working in] a competitive environment for the past week and a half. When these planes landed on the highway, the base they took off [from] was under simulated attack.

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