VICTORIA -- The sole occupant of a fatal plane crash on Vancouver Island over the weekend was an elderly man from the Comox Valley, according to the BC Coroners Service.
The provincial organization says that the man was in his 70s but cannot release further information on his identity due to provincial privacy legislation. The BC RCMP have confirmed, however, that the man's remains were removed from the crash site Monday.
On Sunday, the BC RCMP said that the Comox Valley detachment first learned that the plane was missing at approximately 4 p.m. Saturday when it failed to arrive for its scheduled landing at 1:30 p.m. The plane, a Cessna 172 aircraft, was bound for Courtenay at the time.
After calling multiple island airports and searching for the plane themselves, the Comox Valley RCMP alerted the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria, who launched a search Saturday evening.
Searchers eventually found the crashed plane in a remote wooded area northeast of Tofino on Sunday morning.
According to a BC RCMP spokesperson, Mounties are unlikely to be deployed to the remote crash site moving forward, with the remainder of the investigation being led by the BC Coroners Service and Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
