The remains of the pilot were not found at the site in Nantahala National Forest, but a search will resume now that the wreckage has been located, said Rick Schwein, supervisory agent in the FBI's Asheville office.

Walter Barker, 71, left Portsmouth on Nov. 4, 1998, on a trip to Andrews to visit his son, Jerome Barker.

Jerome Barker is an FBI agent who was assigned to the manhunt for fugitive bombing suspect Eric Rudolph, who was arrested in nearby Murphy on May 31, 2003. He is now FBI supervisory agent in Cincinnati.

When Barker didn't arrive, the FBI, Civil Air Patrol and local law enforcement agents searched for the single-engine aircraft without success. But the family never quit searching.

Jerome Barker and his relatives continued to hunt for the plane, taking vacations to hike the remote and rugged mountains.

"This family has literally come and walked these mountains and searched for him for the past six years. They never gave up on it," Schwein said.

"We can finally give closure to this family."

Jerome Barker and his brother, Nelson Barker, went to the crash site with agents last week. The site was several miles from the nearest road just below a ridge in heavy woods.

"It is tough to get to," Schwein said. "You could have walked right by it and not seen it, because of terrain and vegetation."

The agent said the bear hunter didn't have a unit to get a global positioning system fix on the site when he found it Wednesday. The hunter described the area to U.S. Forest Service rangers, who helped locate it for the FBI and Graham County Sheriff's Department.

Schwein said the FBI now has a GPS fix on the site.