If it was crashing in a sparsely populated or forested area, perhaps that’s why nobody can find it?
But certainly they would have a search area to narrow down where it could be, based on the last known location, etc?
I’m going to check my backyard right now.
Is the smoke plume stealth?
“Pa, I found me one of them stealthy planes”
“Yank the VIN off’n it, slap that’n on the truck under the dash and we’ll sell it”