New Mexico officials this weekend have been searching for a missing Colorado-based plane that took off from Santa Fe on Thursday evening shortly after refueling.

At around 6 p.m. local time, not long after the aircraft took off, air controllers lost contact with the plane. Authorities pinned the aircraft's last location approximately one mile south of Terrero, New Mexico, in the heavily forested, high-elevation Pecos Wilderness preserve. The New Mexico State Police, National Guard and Civil Air Patrol aircraft have all been involved in the search.

The plane was a single engine, four-seater Grumman AA5 belonging to American Aircraft Brokers in Englewood, Colorado. The model was designed in 1976.

Civil Air Patrol Maj. John Grisham has said he spoke with a group of hunters in the region that saw an aircraft fitting the missing plane's description flying very low on Thursday evening.

Although flying on commercial planes is extremely safe, the majority of airplane crashes in the U.S. occur in small private airplanes not attached to a commercial airliner. Nearly 45,000 people have been killed in private planes and helicopters between 1964 and 2017.

One of the major issues with small planes has been defects with the planes themselves that have been covered up by manufacturers. Civil-court judges and juries over the years have found major plane manufacturers such as Cessna and Mitsubishi to be held liable for some deadly crashes, forcing the companies to pay millions in compensatory and punitive damages.

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