Search for still-missing Catalina boater catalyst for mid-air collision

More from City News this morning:

While Coast Guard and Marine Corps officials search for victims of a midair collision between a search plane and a military chopper, the search also continues today for the 50-year-old man who accidentally started the tragic chain of events last week.

David Thomas Jines was at the helm of a skiff -- a small motorized dinghy -- last seen on the eastern side of Catalina Island Tuesday afternoon. He had just helped awoman boater friend re-establish her anchorage in heavy winds when he motored back towards his boat, anchored near Avalon, officials said.

That was the last he was seen. The friend reported him missing after she could not find him or the skiff at his boat or in Avalon on Wednesday.

"I know that the Coast Guard has been looking for him for awhile. They haven't stopped looking for him and neither have we," said Bruce Wicklund, a City of Avalon harbor patrol officer. "Most of the search has been on the east of Catalina Island."

Although the missing skiff was last seen east of Catalina Island, a Coast Guard helicopter searching for the boat crashed into a Marine chopper southwest of Catalina, over the ocean east of San Clemente Island. Winds were blowing in that direction from Avalon Tuesday evening.

The search ended today for seven Coast Guard aviators from the Sacramento station searching for Jines presumed lost, and the two pilots from the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, north of San Diego. Military crews are now in a salvage, recovery and investigatory mode, officials in San Diego said today.

That means extra eyes remain focussed for Jines, who was a bit of a mystery to harbor keepers in Avalon.

"He lives on a boat out there, so we really don't know what he was doing out there," the sheriff's dispatcher in Avalon said. Jines is a 6-foot, 160-pound white male with brown hair, green eyes and a mustache, the dispatcher said.

Anyone with any information regarding Jines' whereabouts was asked to call the sheriff's Avalon station at (310) 510-0174.