Air search called off for missing plane
The air search for a light plane with six people aboard, which failed to arrive at its destination in Victoria's north-east, has been called off for the day.
Air Services Australia's Richard Dudley says the plane has not landed at any neighbouring airstrips and could not possibly still be flying.
"We have serious concern for the safety of the aircraft and those on board because we are now well outside the aircrafts ability to fly, knowing the amount of fuel it was carrying."
There has been no signal detected from an emergency beacon which would have been on board.
The ground search is continuing.
Piper Cheyenne was on a flight from Bankstown in Sydney to Benalla in the Wangaratta region.
It was due to land at about 11.30 am AEST.
Benalla Aerodrome says it received the pilots call to land but the plane vanished from the radar moments later.
Ben Mitchell from Australian Search and Rescue (AusSAR) says conditions in the search area are difficult.
"The low cloud really is making it virtually impossible to get aircraft into the area and it's very difficult to get in there by foot or other means, it's literally tiger country," he said.
He said the twin-engine aircraft was last reported 33 kilometres south-east of Wangaratta.
"AusSAR is appealing for anyone in the Wangaratta, Benalla, Myrtleford region who may have seen or heard a white twin-engined plane flying low in the region this morning to contact Australian Search and Rescue on 1-800-815257."
Grant Lewis, who lives near the Benalla airport, says he heard the plane fly over his property at about 11 am AEST.
"He went over here, I'm quite sure of that, and I've established that," he said.
"My wife wasn't sure which way he was travelling...she didn't take a lot of notice of it, except there was so much pea soup you couldn't see the plane of course.
"It's been that way all day down here."
Taken from
ABC Online