Friends of missing couple Gregory Vaughan and Kim Worner alerted by lack of radio call before Bass Strait flight
Pilot Gregory Vaughan, 72, his partner Kim Worner, 66, along with their dog, Molly, have not been heard from since before they departed George Town Airport, in Tasmania's north, on Saturday afternoon.
Travelling in their bright green two-seater Bristell S-LSA, they were destined for central western NSW, with a fuel stop in regional Victoria.
When they did not arrive that afternoon, a relative who had their flight note raised the alarm, triggering a multi-day search across northern Tasmania, southern Victoria, and the stretch of water separating them.
But friends knew something was up earlier.
George Town Airport Association president David Brewster said Mr Vaughan, an experienced pilot, had been planning the trip for some time.
Worried that he had not heard a broadcast from George Town Airport, Mr Brewster said the friend went to the airfield expecting to find the plane still there, but it was gone.
"I was just at the airport doing some work in my hangar, and he came to me quite concerned that he hadn't heard a departure call, he hadn't heard anything on the radio, 'What's going on?'" Mr Brewster said.
Within about half an hour of take-off, the two contacted Airservices Australia to see if the pilot had made contact with Melbourne Centre.
"We did eventually get onto the [airport traffic control] guys at Melbourne … there'd been a change of shift or something, and for them to be able to find out whether this particular aircraft had made a call on that frequency would have meant pulling all their tapes, and they weren't prepared to pull their tapes just because I was asking them," he said.
"[I was] suggesting, you know, 'it would be nice to know if this guy has made a broadcast', because if he made broadcasts on that frequency, we knew that he had at least gone out that far."
Mr Brewster said they were told to contact search and rescue if the plane did not arrive at its destination in time, which they later did.
"We then went flying, and we looked over all the land between George Town and the coast, and there was no sign of him … the search got underway after that," he said.
Mr Brewster said not broadcasting was out of character for Mr Vaughan.
"The aviation environment is one where, when a little thing goes wrong, it can really quickly snowball into something bigger than you can handle."
Recreational Aviation Australia chair Michael Monck said modern aircraft were typically fitted with an automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) transmitter and a transponder.
But no signal appears to have been picked up from Mr Vaughan's plane on flight radar maps.
Mr Monck said some kind of aircraft fault could prevent a plane from being detected, but anything could have happened.
He said the unknown nature was "troubling".
"We make every effort to keep it safe, we pre-fly the aircraft, we plan our flights ahead of time, we have things in place to deal with the unexpected, but we can only plan for those things that we understand."
"When there are unknowns that cause incidents like this, that leaves a lot of questions."
The ABC contacted Airservices Australia, but it declined to comment, saying it was a "Tasmania Police matter".
"It has been consistent to the investigation that the pilot and his passenger made no contact with their family or aviation authorities after take-off," a Tasmania Police spokesperson said.
"Tasmania Police has received no advice to indicate the pilot, the passenger, or their light plane had active devices that would assist investigators [to] track their location. Investigators have used extensive resources in the conduct of the search.
Inspector Craig Fox said the police helicopter would continue sweeping the northern Tasmanian coastline on Friday, using Australian Maritime Safety Authority drift data.
Police vessel Cape Wickham will also be deployed, after days off the water due to choppy conditions and no new leads.
"On Thursday, the police helicopter conducted sweeps of the Furneaux Island group, including Flinders Island, Cape Barren Island and Chappell Island, plus other smaller islands," Inspector Fox said.
"Unfortunately, there was no sight of the plane or any other factors, such as debris, which may indicate its potential location.
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