Two helicopters, several planes and about 500 rescuers on Friday scoured a snow-laden area in Iceland where a small tourist plane has been missing for more than a day.
The Cessna C172 with an Icelandic pilot and three foreign tourists hasn't been heard from since taking off from the capital Reykjavik on Thursday morning for the Golden Circle in the country's south-west.
“The flight conditions were good. We haven't received any distress signal or an alert,” coastguard spokesman Asgeir Erlendsson said.
The plane was due to return to Reykjavik two hours later.
The coastguard said the pilot was a local man in his 50s while the three foreign passengers were younger.
It did not specify their nationalities.
“We are basing our research on information gleaned from telephone conversations and air traffic control,” the spokesman said, and added that the plane was last tracked at a distance of about 50 kilometres from the capital.
About 700 rescuers, including members of the police and the coastguard as well as a Danish air force plane took part in search operations on Thursday.
Officials said the plane may have crashed over Thingvellir National Park, a Unesco World Heritage site about 50 kilometres east of Reykjavik that contains Iceland’s second-largest lake.
Asgrimur Larus Asgrimsson, head of operations for Iceland's coastguard, said that mobile phone data “has given us a reason to narrow the search area down to the Thingvellir area".
