Commentators are split over whether the flights point to a cross‑border kidnapping plot or routine police logistics, with authorities yet to clarify their purpose.
Helicopters from two Arizona sheriff’s departments were tracked flying between Tucson, the Mexican border and an FBI facility in Phoenix on Tuesday 24 March, in the latest twist in the search for Today host Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother, Nancy Guthrie, according to a US crime podcast.
The news came after almost two months of unanswered questions over what happened to the 84‑year‑old, who is believed to have been abducted from her Tucson, Arizona home in the early hours of 1 February. Family members last saw her the previous night.
Since then, the case has shifted from a local missing person report to something far more complex and unsettling, with the local sheriff previously describing it as a ‘targeted kidnapping’ and the FBI taking a visible role.
Helicopter Corridor Deepens Questions In Savannah Guthrie Case
On Crime Stories With Nancy Grace on 24 March, investigative reporter Dave Mack told listeners that a helicopter belonging to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department had taken off earlier that day and flown ‘in a corridor between Tucson and the border with Mexico’.
Mack said that later, aircraft from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department joined the operation, flying between Tucson, the border area and what he described as the FBI headquarters in Phoenix. As of this reporting, no law‑enforcement agency has publicly set out the purpose of these flights.
Veteran US host Nancy Grace, who has made the Guthrie case a recurring subject on her programme, argued on air that the movements were ‘too much of a coincidence’ to be unrelated to the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mother. In her view, a route that appeared to swing by the border before heading to Phoenix suggested more than a routine personnel transfer.
Former Marine and Iraq war veteran Brian Fitzgibbons, who also appeared on the programme, disputed that conclusion. He said the pattern looked less like a search grid and more like officials being moved quickly from one point to another.
‘This looks like movement of personnel to me,’ Fitzgibbons said, adding that ‘for some reason, they went directly to that FBI location’.
Earlier flights in the investigation, he noted, had been seen sweeping slowly in what he described as a grid pattern, consistent with what he called ‘Bluetooth beacon’ searches linked to Nancy Guthrie’s pacemaker. These latest trips were different, he argued, describing them as ‘directed movements of personnel, for a specific reason, back to that FBI location’.
Grace pushed back, questioning why anyone would take a helicopter on what she called a ‘triangle’ route if the aim was simply to move people around.
‘They’re not going to go in a triangle,’ she insisted. ‘If it was just transferring personnel, they would go from Pima to Phoenix. They would not go on a drive-by at the Mexican border.’
The Guthrie investigation has already involved an unusual degree of technology and inter‑agency coordination for a missing elderly person case.
On previous episodes of Grace’s show, analysts described how investigators had deployed ‘signal sniffers’ to try to detect the Bluetooth signal from Nancy Guthrie’s pacemaker.
Those searches reportedly involved aircraft moving slowly over specific areas, attempting to pick up any trace of the device.
Joseph Scott Morgan, a forensics professor at Jacksonville State University, suggested on the latest programme that the new helicopter activity could be tied to imagery gathered by drones or satellites.
‘If they’re working on any kind of imagery that has been either generated by drones, it’s been generated by satellite imagery, it’s one thing to take that and look at it on a computer screen,’ he said. ‘But if you got people that are interested in this investigation, they can take those images and go back and say, “Okay, we’re going to fly this route.”‘
Earlier this month, US investigators have reportedly been in contact with Mexican authorities for some weeks, and the Guthrie family separately reached out to a non-profit organisation in Mexico that specialises in locating missing persons in the region.
Savannah Guthrie, speaking publicly for the first time since her mother’s abduction in an interview published on 25 March, said her family was ‘in agony.’ The case remains open and no arrest has been made.
Nancy Guthrie sheriff has made ‘pattern of amateurish missteps,’ neighbor fumes
Not one of his 300 deputies voted to keep him — and now Chris Nanos faces a public recall and board investigation over a disciplinary past he hid for more than 40 years
The man tasked with finding Nancy Guthrie is fighting for his job on multiple fronts — facing a public recall drive, a board-ordered investigation and a crushing rejection from the very deputies he commands, all triggered by a disciplinary record he kept buried for more than four decades.
Formal recall proceedings against Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos are now before the county board of governors, with Arizona residents alleging he “lied under oath” and “failed to disclose his past” at the time of his election. The board responded by voting unanimously to summon Nanos and put him under oath.
Lori Moore, a Pima County resident at the forefront of the signature-gathering effort, gave the board a flavor of public sentiment when she appeared before it. It comes after a bombshell Nancy Guthrie update as a person fled the neighborhood within days of the kidnapping.
“The mere mention of his name gets the clipboard snatched out of my hands, followed by, ‘Give me that. This guy has got to go,'” she said. Those signing the petition, Moore explained, had formed their view of Nanos entirely from media coverage of his handling of the Guthrie case — coverage she described as “embarrassing reports on national news excoriating him nightly for a pattern of amateurish missteps in the gruesome disappearance of Pima County resident Nancy Guthrie.”
She told the board the warning signs had always been there for anyone who looked, fuming, “This does not bode well for the leading law enforcement officer in Pima County or the people who gave him that job.
“The sheriff’s well documented history with the El Paso Police Department should have never granted him employment in the Pima County Correctional System, much less the climb to sheriff. The signs were there if anyone bothered to look. For example, there is a record of disciplinary action, including a multiple day suspension for police brutality.”
The rejection from within his own ranks was equally damaging. When roughly 300 Pima County deputies convened for an Arizona Union meeting, the vote on Nanos’ future produced a result that left no room for ambiguity, according to the Brian Entin Investigates podcast.
Of those who cast a vote, 241 chose “No Confidence & Resign.” Another 64 declined to vote either way. The “Confidence & Continue” option attracted zero support.
The union had called the vote after Nanos’ concealed record at the El Paso Police Department — kept from both the Pima department and the wider public for over 40 years — finally became impossible to ignore.
The records paint a damning picture. During a six-year stint at El Paso Police Department ending in 1982, Nanos accumulated eight separate suspensions totalling 37 days without pay.
The offences covered a striking range of misconduct: excessive force — one incident alone drew a 15-day suspension after he allegedly struck a suspect in the head, leaving the individual requiring intensive care — plus the discharge of his firearm, illegal gambling, persistent lateness, insubordination, making threats, dereliction of duty, misuse of a police siren and further violations.
Facing the prospect of outright dismissal, Nanos chose to walk away from El Paso rather than be pushed. His departure papers cited “insubordination” and “consistent inefficiency” as the grounds.
He then sought work as a Corrections Officer with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. The El Paso file, it appears, went with him undisclosed.
The union said the record “raises serious concerns about leadership fitness and sets a troubling precedent for the department,” warning that effective policing was impossible under a leader carrying “such a history of repeated disciplinary problems.”
Nancy Guthrie, 84, whose daughter is NBC Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, vanished from her Tucson home on February 1. Weeks into the investigation, neither a suspect nor a person of interest has been identified publicly.
Nanos, running the case alongside the FBI, showed no sign of stepping back in a recent interview with News 4 Tucson. “Look, I have no regrets about my team and their efforts,” he said. “I don’t regret we let the crime scene go too soon or any of that.”
A separate recall push has been mounted by congressional candidate Daniel Butierez, whose campaign to oust Nanos launched the previous week.