MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Philippine authorities said Monday they would verify whether the wreckage of a small plane discovered near the crater of a troubled volcano was that of a Cessna plane that was carrying four people over the weekend had disappeared on board.
The Cessna 340, bound for Manila, took off from Albay province, southeast of the capital, Saturday morning with two Filipino pilots and two Australian passengers, but has not been heard from since, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said.
The Australians worked for a geothermal company, officials said.
Mayor Carlos Baldo of the Albay town of Cammalig and other officials told reporters Sunday that authorities during an air search discovered the suspected wreckage, including the tail, scattered about 1,150 feet near the crater on the southwestern slope of Mayon Volcano, but it was there no reference to humans.
Eric Apolonio, spokesman for the government’s Civil Aviation Authority, said experts and investigators from the agency needed to examine the wreckage to determine if it was the missing Cessna aircraft, registration number RP-C2080, and the fate of the four people on board to determine .
A ground search was hampered by rainy weather over the weekend, and dozens of search and rescue workers can scale the 8,500-foot (2,462-meter) Mayon when the weather clears on Monday. Given the unrest of Mayon, one of the country’s 24 active volcanoes, search teams would need to be closely monitored by volcano experts and local officials.
“It’s a very risky operation,” Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, told The Associated Press. “It’s a race against time and a matter of life and death, but there is also the risk of falling rocks and volcanic lahars.”
Rescue contingents could enter a permanent danger zone 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) around the volcano because “it’s an exceptional situation,” but search and rescue should be conducted by well-trained experts, who should be backed up by preparedness and emergency contingents alerted to the high risks involved, Bacolcol said.
A popular tourist attraction due to its near-perfect cone, Mayon last erupted in 2018, displacing tens of thousands of villagers.
It is currently below the second of five volcano warning levels, meaning volcanic earthquakes, steam and gas emissions, ground deformation, and intermittent ash and steam explosions have been sporadically detected. Alert five means a major and deadly volcanic eruption is underway.
Separately, a single-engine Cessna plane that disappeared on January 24 with six people on board in the northern Philippine province of Isabela remained missing. Officials said a search for the plane would continue in a remote mountainous backcountry in Isabela, weather permitting.
The Associated Press
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