VANCOUVER -- The BC Coroners Service has confirmed one person is dead after a plane crashed on Vancouver Island Saturday night.
The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria told CTV News Vancouver Island the plane was due in Tofino that evening, but never arrived.
B.C. RCMP later said in a release that the plane was overdue for arrival in Courtenay, B.C., not Tofino.
A crash site was discovered Sunday morning on land near Stewardson Inlet, the JRCC said.
In their release, RCMP said the Comox Valley detachment learned the plane was missing around 4 p.m. Saturday. The plane was scheduled to land at 1:30 p.m., according to police.
After contacting several Vancouver Island airports, Mounties were unable to locate the missing plane, and called the JRCC to initiate a search, police said.
Maj. Sandy Bourne, senior public affairs officer for the JRCC, said the search began Saturday night, but crews were unable to locate a beacon that had been set off.
"We got a call that there was a plane that hadn't shown up, or someone had called in and they were looking for someone," she said. "So then we just went and looked for the beacon, found it, and we're where we are now."
Bourne could not say what type of aircraft had crashed, how many people were on board, or whether there were injuries or fatalities. She did not say that anyone had been rescued from the wreckage, and referred questions about the plane's occupants to RCMP.
As of Sunday afternoon, the RCMP said, none of their officers had been able to reach the crash site because of its geographic remoteness. As a result, police did not have information about the type of plane or the number of occupants.
