Police and military search crews spent Friday searching the Georgian Bay shoreline for a small plane that never made it to its destination.
The Canadian Coast Guard and the OPP are searching the cold and choppy waters near Tiny Township for any sign of a single engine Cessna and its pilot that went missing Thursday night.
“It’s the last known position – the northern part of Tiny Townships,” says OPP constable Dave Hobson.
Police say they know this because the GPS on pilot’s cellphone last reading was in the area.
The plane with only the pilot on board took off from Cornwall around 5 p.m. Thursday night and was supposed to land at Bill Bishop Airport in Owen Sound three hours later. But thirty minutes after the plane was overdue, the Canadian Forces Joint Rescue Coordination Centre received a call from the flight centre in London that the plane and pilot were missing.
“The distress beacon wasn’t activated. The distress beacon that his aircraft is known to be equipped with is from an early generation and is not as reliable and less useful in a search like this,” said David Ellis with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Along with the coast guard, a Hercules aircraft and Griffon helicopter from Trenton have been searching the water since late Thursday night and continued on Friday.
The OPP has also been searching the shoreline along the north end of Tiny Township and checking nearby airports. So far they haven’t turned up any clues but rescue teams believe the pilot and the plane must be somewhere in the area.
The pilot’s identity hasn’t been released and both the Canadian Forces and OPP say this is still very much a search and rescue mission.
