One person is dead after a plane crashed on Vancouver Island Saturday, the BC Coroners Service has confirmed.
The plane was discovered Sunday on the west coast of the island on the Stewardson Inlet, the Canadian Joint Rescue Coordination Centre and RCMP said.
The coroner could not provide any other information about the victim.
The JRCC and the RCMP have been unable to comment at this time on the status of any passengers.
RCMP said the plane was set to land around 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the airpark in Courtenay, B.C., on the eastern coast of the island north of Nanaimo.
The Courtenay Airpark confirmed with Global News the plane was supposed to land there, but it never arrived.
Aircraft and search and rescue crews were dispatched late Saturday afternoon, but by the time crews neared the site it was too dark to see, JRCC Maj. Sandra Bourne said.
“By the time they got there it was evening, it was dark. They couldn’t find anything,” said Bourne.
Bourne said the search began again at daybreak on Sunday, where crews said they found a crash site on the Stewardson Inlet.
RCMP said the crash site was found just after 9 a.m. Sunday, but said police have been unable to attend the scene due to how remote the area is.
The Transportation Safety Board confirmed the plane that crashed is a Cessna 172, which can seat up to four people — but the agency could not confirm how many people were on board.
The TSB said it would decide within the next day whether to send a crew to the crash site.
The crash comes just weeks after another fatal plane crash on B.C.’s Gabriola Island close by, which killed three people including the pilot.
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