SANTA ROSA (KRON) — Mark and Brenda Richards were last seen Monday around 4 p.m. when they left the Truckee Tahoe Airport in their four-seat, blue and white Socata TB-20 airplane.

Outside their door in Santa Rosa, a note from their family to the public states their optimism in the search for the missing couple.

“We’re all hoping for the best,” said neighbor Cliff Planer.

Brenda is believed to have been the pilot of the couple’s plane.

The Sierra County Sheriff’s Office says the Richard’s were supposed to land at Petaluma Municipal Airport shortly after taking off but never made it.

The Civil Air Patrol launched a search the next day.

Bad weather the previous night prevented crews from heading out earlier.

“It is what it is and we hope that they… maybe they had a soft landing in the snow,” Planer said. He has lived a few doors down from the Richard’s for at least 15 years.

Neighbors say the couple has four grown daughters and recently celebrated the birth of a new grandchild.

The search continues in a rugged area of the Sierra Nevada mountain range where the Civil Air Patrol says it tracked one of the couple’s cellphones about 20 miles northwest of Truckee.WHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON:

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