Nicosia: The chief of Cyprus’ aircraft accidents board says search crews have found wreckage belonging to a small aircraft that vanished while en route to Beirut, Lebanon, from the east Mediterranean island.
Yiannakis Loizou said that the fate of two people on-board the plane remains unknown and that search efforts continue.
He said a German warship attached to a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon will ferry the wreckage to Cyprus on Thursday for Cypriot investigators to begin their probe.
Cypriot authorities said the twin-engine Diamond DA42 plane with one Cypriot and one Lebanese national on-board disappeared on Wednesday evening around 80 kilometres southeast of the coastal town of Larnaca.
The plane had taken off from an airport near the town of Paphos, on Cyprus’ western coast.
Cypriot media said wreckage from the plane was spotted some 40 nautical miles (75km) from Larnaca, on Cyprus’s southeast coast.
The Cypriot authorities initially deployed a helicopter to search for it while placing other emergency services on standby, police said.
There was no indication as to why the plane disappeared, they said.
Reports in Beirut said the two people were on a training flight.
Air traffic controllers had tried to reach it by radio on numerous occasions, but received no answer.
