Search for missing Saudi pilot ends without a trace

Riyadh: Search had ended for a Saudi pilot trainee who had gone missing almost two weeks ago in the Philippines without finding a trace of him, deepening the mystery of his disappearance, his grief-stricken family has said.

Abdullah Khalid Al Sharif, 23, who studies at an aviation institution in the Philippines, was on a training flight on May 18 along with his Filipino instructor when contact was lost with the plane.

“We have been informed that the search stopped after sonar devices had not found any trace of the plane wreckage or the missing persons,” Abdul Majuid Al Sharif, the brother of Abdukllah, told Saudi online newspaper Ajel.

He added that sea search in the area where the aircraft had flown covered an area of 21 kilometres wide and seven kilometres long.

The aircraft vanished from radar on the Occidental Mindor.

With the inclusive search, Abdullah’s family increasingly believes there is a criminal motive behind his disappearance.

“Now that search is over, and based on evidence we have reached, we can say that there is a possibility of about 99 per cent that the incident is criminal because we didn’t find any trace of the plane or its debris in the sea,” the man’s uncle also named Abdullah, said without details

He told Saudi newspaper Sabq that the island where the plane had disappeared is not far away from the airport off which the aircraft had taken.

Other members of the family said that the trainee’s mobile phone was still ringing, but without an answer.