JOHANNESBURG (AP) - A small plane carrying only its American pilot disappeared 10 days ago just miles from a refueling stop at a West African island in the middle of a tropical storm of thunder and lightning.
Since then, searches with a plane and boats have found no trace of the pilot, 54-year-old missionary Jerry Krause, or the twin-engine Beechcraft 1900C that he was flying from South Africa to Mali.
Krause's family in Mali, where he has lived for 16 years, and in Waseca, Minnesota, believes he is alive and could have landed in hostile territory.
"After much research and digging, there is a 50% chance that Jerry's plane crashed," says a message posted Wednesday to their website www.findjerry.com
"That other 50% is the probability that he was captured and forced to fly for some drug lords or guerrilla members. There is evidence now to support both scenarios."
Family members reached by email would not elaborate on any possible evidence, and the suggestion could not be immediately backed.
The posting said that a missing person's report has been filed in the United States so that the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board can start an investigation into Krause's disappearance.
The Krauses have launched a multifaceted campaign to "find Jerry." Family members are lobbying officials, posting messages on social media and using the Internet to encourage a relay of prayers for his safe return.
Krause's last contact was apparently with the control tower at Sao Tome island, a couple of kilometers north of the equator and 150 miles (240 kilometers) from the coast of Gabon.
"We have no idea what happened to him," Januario Barreto, the control tower chief, told The Associated Press by telephone Wednesday.
He said Krause called in to say he was 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the island when lightning struck the tower and knocked out the power. That was just before 4 p.m. local time (1600 GMT), still in daylight, on Sunday, April 7. When generators kicked in, soon afterward, Krause could no longer be reached, Barreto said.
He said air traffic controllers immediately contacted the nearest control towers on the African mainland at Libreville, Gabon and Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, to see whether they had heard from Krause. They had not.
Navy and Coast Guard vessels are still looking for any trace of Krause's plane, Barreto said.
The family's website said they have sent a Portuguese-speaking envoy to Sao Tome, at the family's expense, to "get the official documentation as to what actually took place there from Jerry radioing in to land to their responses and follow-up.
"Their stories haven't been confirmed and haven't been consistent," the message complained.
Krause's employer, Eric van der Gragt, said the control tower did not inform others that there was a missing pilot and plane until almost 24 hours after the disappearance.
"The tower just didn't inform people that he had disappeared," van der Gragt, owner of Bamako, Mali-based Sahel Aviation Service, said in a telephone interview.
He said he sent a plane to search for Krause for two days that week, after the Sao Tome Coast Guard had found nothing on the Monday and Tuesday following his disappearance. The Sahel plane searched around the twin-island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, he said.
Van der Gragt said the turboprop Beechcraft that Krause was flying did not belong to his company but, he believed, to a company based in Senegal.
Krause's family is heartened that searchers have found nothing in the Gulf of Guinea, saying that an absence of wreckage or emergency locator transmitter signals are hopeful signs.
The oil-rich Gulf of Guinea, where Krause disappeared, has been increasingly targeted by armed pirates who hijack ships' cargoes, including a British ship in February.
At their Web site and on Facebook, the Krause family details how they lobbied officials of the French cellular service Orange, to which the pilot was subscribed, in an effort to get them to try to track his iPhone and discover his last position. At first the company resisted, then said it was unable to help because his subscription was based in Mali, according to the Web site. Orange was able to turn off the iPhone from afar, to conserve its battery.
Krause's family last heard from him when he called his wife Gina from South Africa to let her know he was on his way home to Bamako. The two have lived as missionaries in Africa for 25 years, the last 16 of them in Mali, a mainly Muslim country. Krause had served as a missionary pilot for the Nampa, Idaho-based Mission Aviation Fellowship until 2009 when the air service pulled out of Mali.
Jerry and Gina Krause stayed on. Many foreign companies and charities have left Mali since jihadist fighters swarmed over the north last year. France and several African nations sent troops this year when the Islamic fighters, allied with al-Qaeda, started to advance on Bamako, the capital.
"God knows where Jerry is," Gina Krause says, expressing certainty and her faith in a posting at the findjerry Web site. "I know I serve a God who can do the IMPOSSIBLE."
AP writer Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal contributed to this report.
The Krause family is raising awareness for Jerry Krause, a 54-year-old missionary pilot who went missing on April 7 when his plane hit a tropical storm while en route from South Africa to Mali.
A family is searching for answers after a pilot, who has served as a missionary in Africa for the past 25 years, went missing 10 days ago when his plane was hit by a tropical storm on his way to Mali.
The family worries that the pilot may have been captured by guerilla forces or drug lords.
Jerry Krause, 54, went missing on April 7 while flying a twin-engine Beechcraft 1900C near the island of São Tomé, where he was due for a refill of fuel, en route to Mali from South Africa.
About nine miles away from the island, an intense tropical storm reportedly hit and the missionary pilot lost contact with the local control tower at São Tomé; he has not been heard from since.
"We have no idea what happened to him," Januario Barreto, the control tower chief, told The Associated Press by telephone Wednesday.
Barreto claims that the tropical storm caused lightning to hit the São Tomé control tower, causing it to temporarily lose power shortly after it had its last verbal communication with Krause.
When the generator at the control tower restored power, Jerry could not be contacted.
Jerry's family, which includes his wife, Gina, his brother, Jeremy, and three children, Alyssa, Nathan, and Jessica, has set up a website, www.findjerry.com, to provide updates about their search for their loved one, implore government officials to help with the search, and encourage followers to pray for Jerry's safe return.
The family has also set up a social media campaign, starting the Twitter trend "FindJerry" and setting up a Facebook page to spread awareness about their missing loved one.
The Krause family wrote on the FindJerry.com webpage that they believe the São Tomé control tower did not follow protocol when Jerry's plane went missing, and could possibly now be trying to cover their tracks to avoid reprimand.
"Sao Tome air traffic control DID NOT contact mainland airports to check on Jerry's status as they should have," the family says on the website.
Additionally, the family refuted the claims of the control tower that lightning from the tropical storm knocked out the power of the control tower for a temporary time when Jerry went missing.
"[The control tower officials] are either stating this now to cover their tracks since they didn't follow protocol when a plane went missing or they are involved somehow with the disappearance," the family argued.
"It would have made sense had they come out and said that from the beginning, but such thing was said last week about electricity going out," the family noted.
The family also believes that because no plane wreckage has been found, it's possible that Jerry is alive and surviving.
Unfortunately, there is a 50 percent chance Jerry could have landed his plane in enemy territory and could now possibly be used as a pilot for drug traffickers against his will.
"After much research and digging, there is a 50% chance that Jerry's plane crashed. That other 50% is the probability that he was captured and forced to fly for some drug lords or guerillas members. There is evidence now to support both scenarios," the family stated.
In an earlier blog post, the family wrote that Jerry's plane would have crashed into "a million pieces," which surely would have been washed ashore by the changing tide or scooped up by fishing nets, and therefore, because no plane fragments have been found, "there is more potential that he was potentially ambushed or kidnapped."
"Again, there is no proof of kidnapping, but it's becoming more of a reality. Please pray for the US Embassy officials to get answers and for other countries to cooperate as we continue to search," the family wrote.
The family has also been making progress in spreading awareness of Jerry's absence to the authorities in both the U.S. and South Africa, successfully filing a missing person's report in the U.S. to enable the National Transportation Safety Board and the South African Civil Aviation Authority to begin their investigation into the pilot's whereabouts.
Additionally, the Krause family offered a $5,000 reward for information on Jerry's whereabouts, including providing fragments of his plane, but no one has come forward with any evidence.
The family continues to remain hopeful and faithful during this time of uncertainty, writing on their Find Jerry website that they are grateful for the prayers given to their family and to Jerry.
"We serve a God who can move mountains and whose mighty hand is over this entire situation," the Krause family wrote.
Jerry Krause has worked as a missionary in Africa for the past 25 years, spending the past 16 years in Mali with his wife, Gina. He most recently worked for the Sahel Aviation Service, a commercial company which provides air transportation in the areas around Mali.
Prior to that, Jerry also worked as a pilot for the Mission Aviation Fellowship for 22 years, which works to help over 1,000 Christian and humanitarian organizations with air transportation and delivery.
Jerry worked for the MAF until 2009, when the air service ended its work in Mali.
Just so you can plan ahead in great anticipation for the next update :), I plan on updating once a week, updating on Monday or Tuesday (even though today is Wed) unless something urgent comes up.
My intention for this update is to explain why we believe my dad to still be alive. We are almost at two months since he disappeared. And looking at the evidence, as I've mentioned previously, the most logical perspective would determine my dad to be dead. As time progresses, the easiest solution would be to count my dad dead. That final verdict would end the waiting, the effort of searching, and the perseverance of continuing to pray. I would be relieved to have the test God placed in the lives of my family to have ended many weeks ago, to be in a place where we could just move on. But, God's timing is beyond my understanding and the test has not ended.
As I've thought through the reasons as to why we believe my dad is still alive, I've reread report after report of the investigations done searching for my dad in order to come up with the most logical reasons. But even after making a list of those reasons, I don't think they are the main reasons we still believe my dad is alive. Briefly, the logical reasons to believe my dad to still be alive include (in no specific order): 1. Not finding any piece of the plane, 2. The lack of effort on searching for a crashed plane by Sao Tome, 3. The negligence of the refuelers in Sao Tome in providing documentation of planes refueled on April 7th and 8th, 4. The discrepancy of the facts regarding the last conversation my dad had with the tower, 5. The corruption in the area and the benefit of having my dad (pilot, mechanic, and free plane).
And the list could go on. If you want more specific logical reasons, feel free to email me (Jessica)...
But, the real reason we believe my dad to be alive:
Because God is not allowing us to believe anything else. When we reach a point of starting to believe my dad to be dead, God keeps placing people in our lives and providing us with Scripture that does not give evidence to him being dead (including around 15 dreams). God keeps telling us: Pray, Persevere, and Trust Me. And so we have to keep doing that.
Please continue to partake in this journey through prayer. I know that is an area that God is testing me. And at the end of this, I don't want to be someone who stopped having faith or someone who believed in the logical and not the miraculous. This situation is one where God wants and is going to get all of the glory. And I have to keep asking, seeking, and knocking till God says I can stop.
May God be glorified in me and in you. May we each be able to stand before God and have Him say, well done my good and faithful servant, no matter what situation we each face. For God is good. His Love endures. And He will be victorious.
