NSW police and emergency services are attempting to reach the wreckage of a small plane after an aerial search located it in steep and heavily wooded forest.
The condition of the two people on board remains unclear as of Saturday at 12pm.
The plane, a Mooney M-20, went missing almost 24 hours ago after it dropped of NSW radar on Friday morning.
A search and rescue helicopter, Westpac 4, located the wreckage about 6.30am on Saturday but conditions were described as “difficult”. They were unable to winch a person down to the wreckage due to low clouds down to ground level.
NSW Police are now attempting to reach the plane – about 27 kilometres inland from Coffs Harbour.
Rain and low clouds extending to the ground prevented the helicopter being able to winch a person to the site, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said.
AMSA, which led the search, said the ground-level NSW Police effort to reach the plane would take “some time” as weather conditions remained poor and the terrain was steep and heavily wooded.
Police were knocking on doors around nearby Dorrigo to determine whether any locals had seen the plane in distress, the ABC reported.
Chief Inspector Peter Hayes told the ABC residents were shocked to hear a plane may have crashed nearby.
“They’re very surprised, it’s obviously a flight path that we’re looking at and aircraft go over all the time, but you don’t expect an aircraft to go down near you,” he said.
“It’s very thick terrain, this is the problem, thick and hilly so visibility from the air isn’t very good at all due to fog,” he said.
“Until the fog clears and we can have a bit of a look as to where the plane possibly went down, that’s were we stand at the moment,” he told the ABC.
The light plane departed Murwillumbah in northern NSW at 6.30am on Friday and was scheduled to arrive in Taree at 8am.
AMSA was alerted on Friday morning by the pilot’s associates concerned it hadn’t reached its destination.
Its last known communications were about 7.30am.
Poor conditions also hampered search efforts on Friday afternoon.
-with AAP
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