Police called off the search Tuesday evening for two men believed to have been flying a microflight aircraft that crashed into a lake near Voss in the mountains of western Norway. The aircraft wreckage was spotted by search and rescue crews but it was already surrounded by ice.
“The situation is that the aircraft is lying in two meters of snow that is covered by around 40 centimeters of ice,” local sheriff Ivar Hellene told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK), which reported that the plane crashed in a remote area accessible only by helicopter. “Our rescue crews didn’t have equipment that was good enough to dig through to the cockpit.”
There were no signs that the two missing men from Voss, aged 33 and 48, got out of the plane, so they’re believed to still be inside the cockpit but encapsulated in ice.
Hellene said another attempt would be made to lower a rescue crew down to the wreckage on Wednesday morning, with a chainsaw, axe and winch to try to dig their way through the ice. “We hope to get through to the cockpit during the morning,” he said.
newsinenglish.no staff
