Family Hopeful Missing Idaho Pilot Will Be Found

The wife of an Idaho pilot who failed to return from a flight to Lakeview, Ore., says the family hasn’t given up hope he’s still alive.

Tony Nicholls of Meridian dropped off his two stepsons in Lakeview Thursday and was to return to Meridian that day because his daughter was graduating from high school over the weekend.

Amy Nicholls told the Idaho Statesman on Tuesday that her 48-year-old husband is a marathon runner with a high pain tolerance and called him “the toughest man I’ve ever met in my life.”

She says she texted him during his return flight and his last message said he had “cleared the mountains.” She did not know which mountains.

The search for Nicholls continued Tuesday in southeastern Oregon and northern Nevada and California.