A bit more info (again from a newspaper website, the usual journo caveats apply):
- Pilot contacted LOAV and requested landing
- Switched from IFR to VFR despite dense fog (in the quoted words of the LOAV ops manager)
- Contact lost at 1305L
- Wreckage found around 1500L (apparently aided by ELT signal)
The
article also quotes an 'ear witness', a forestry guard, who was in the forest at the time. He states that he heard an airplane with a 'very deep (as in bass, my explanation) engine sound, as if it was in trouble. Then silence.'
I wouldn't give too much on this 'unusual' engine sound, don't think the chap would have been used to hearing a single turbine as opposed to the usual SEP's the sounds of which he would most likely be familiar with, given the proximity to LOAV.