Silence follows call of distress

Harris Sullivan built his own plane. He was flying back in it from the Bahamas when he disappeared.

By THOMAS LAKE, Times Staff Writer
Published October 16, 2007

Harris Sullivan at the controls of his experimental airplane on Aug. 17. On Saturday, he left the Bahamas for Port Richey.
	[Handout]

ADVERTISEMENT [Handout] The Coast Guard found this raft during a search for Harris Sullivan. The rescue crew examined the raft and found Sullivan's name handwritten in black marker. [Handout] Sullivan's plane was a single-engine Lancair IV, white and navy blue, with an S on the tail for his last name.

Harris Sullivan worked very hard for a lot of years in an office that had a shower and a cot so he could sleep there. He retired in 1999 and then it was time to see the world, to play, which for him still involved a fair amount of work. He spent the next seven years building his own airplane.

It was a single-engine Lancair IV, white and navy blue, with an S on the tail for his last name. He never got married or had children. That airplane was his pride and joy. He took it down to the Bahamas last week, for his 68th birthday, so he could spend a week scuba diving.

On Saturday morning, it was time to come home to Port Richey. He took off from Nassau, bound for Palm Beach International, but his sister said authorities later told her that shortly into the flight, he radioed to officials on the ground to say he was experiencing severe turbulence.

Then, on the radar screen, his blip changed directions.

The radio went silent.

Harris Sullivan, 68, disappeared.

By Monday, no one could say for sure what had befallen him. But his sister, Emily Cleer of Port Richey, was convinced he had crashed into the Atlantic.

"He died doing what he loved," she said. "Which is the way anybody should live their life."

His sister said Sullivan was born in Troy, N.Y., in 1939, served in Korea with the U.S. Army, earned master's degrees from Boston University and American University, served as manager of radio frequencies for NBC Channel 4 in Washington, D.C., and traveled to Australia, China and Antarctica.

Cleer said her brother was a cautious, competent pilot who never would have taken off if he thought the weather wasn't good. It was unclear Monday what caused his disappearance.

The Coast Guard searched for two days and nights, nearly 20,000 square miles, with aircraft from Clearwater, Cape Canaveral and Miami: an HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, an HC-130 Hercules aircraft, an HU-25 Falcon jet, and two HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters.

On Saturday night, the Hercules crew spotted a life raft about 15 miles southwest of Sullivan's last-known position.

On Sunday, the crew from an HH-60 recovered the raft and hoisted it to the deck of a Coast Guard cutter, where the crew examined the raft and found Sullivan's name handwritten in black marker.

They concluded that the raft must have come from Sullivan's plane.

It was 7:52 a.m. Monday when they suspended the search.

Sullivan's sister is planning a memorial service for next spring. Before he disappeared, he put up his own headstone, next to his parents in London, Ky.

All it needs is his date of death.

Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245.

[Last modified October 15, 2007, 21:02:26]