An 80-year-old former soldier has been missing for three days in a mountainous sector of the Franco-Italian border. The search resumed on Monday in Savoie to locate his passenger plane. Debris, the origin of which has not been formally determined, was discovered.
Helicopters from the Modane PGHM and the Italian army are due to resume the search on Monday March 14 to try to find the trace of a tourist plane that disappeared on the Franco-Italian border.
Dennis Craig, 80-year-old Californian pilot, left South Africa at the beginning of last week to reach the United States in stages aboard his single-engine aircraft. But since 11 a.m. this Friday, we lost track of it over the Alps. Only a few debris, which have not yet been formally identified, were discovered on Monday during a helicopter flight on the Italian side.
“Last Friday there was a crazy fog”, explains Alex Gioannini. The mayor of Ceresole Reale, in the Gran Paradiso National Park in Italy, has been at the forefront of the research undertaken since the day the single-engine disappeared.
It was while the plane was flying over his town that contact was lost. A disappearance shrouded in fog both literally and figuratively. “On Friday again, we could at least hope that the pilot forgot to report when he landed”. But three days after the disappearance, it is difficult to still believe in an oversight that bears little resemblance to the habits of the pilot.
Former soldier of the Vietnam War, owner of a small air transport company, the pilot would have taken off Friday at 9:30 a.m. from southern Piedmont, according to the Flight Radar site which records the flights of planes around the world. His flight plan indicated a planned landing in Geneva.
At 11 a.m., the American-made Cirrus Sr22 flies over the Dres waterfalls, above Ceresole. Afterwards, there is a great void. In Geneva, no trace of the plane. On the other hand, Friday evening, the same Flight Radar site reports the landing of the plane at 2:46 p.m. in Wick, in Scotland. A landing denied, since, by the research services of the Italian Air Force.
From Saturday, the Italian Alpine Rescue, firefighters and carabinieri, began the search above by Ceresole Reale. But quickly, the fog, the falling sleet and snow forced the rescuers to interrupt their investigations. “We’ve had 15 centimeters of snow since Saturday.adds the mayor of Ceresole. The army helicopter could not take off. But as of Saturday, we thought that the plane must have passed through France”.
Hence the call of the Italian rescuers to the Modane High Mountain Gendarmerie Platoon (PGHM) whose helicopter made a first overflight based on the last signal received by the Milan control tower. An overview of the Levanna sector, at the bottom of the Ecot valley, in the town of Bonneval-sur-Arc, which had to be interrupted due to bad weather conditions.
“Today (Monday, editor’s note)the weather is fine and the army helicopter was able to resume its flight in the middle of the morning”, says the mayor of Ceresole. A clearing in a mystery which remains whole. Also for the pilot’s family. According to the daily La Stampa, the Italian firefighters would have managed to contact members of the family of Dennis Craig in the United States. But they too are, for the moment, without news of the octogenarian.