Hide And Seek

The pilot who signaled air traffic controllers that his windshield had imploded and that he was bleeding profusely before his plane crashed was apparently faking the call, and was spotted using a false name early Monday, authorities said.

The Piper PA-36 crashed in a swampy area near Milton, Florida, authorities said.

"All indications now are that he made some type of false emergency call [and] abandoned the plane by parachute," said Sgt. Scott Haines of the Santa Rosa County, Florida, Sheriff's Office.

Haines said the pilot -- who has not been publicly identified -- checked into a hotel in the Harpersville, Alabama, under a false name. Haines did not know the whereabouts of the pilot.

Military jets found the aircraft Sunday. The plane was laying upside down, its door open and the cockpit empty, according to Haines.

Kathleen Bergen, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said a "detailed review of radar data" and the fact that the plane had switched to autopilot suggested that the pilot might have parachuted.

Military jets that first spotted the wreckage described the cockpit as empty. Bergen said the cockpit was mostly intact and the door to the aircraft was open.

The corporate plane does not have an ejection feature, and the pilot did not have a parachute when he took off Sunday from Anderson Municipal Airport in Anderson, Indiana, airport manager Steve Darlington told CNN.