Wreckage of plane that disappeared in 2007 found
The wreckage of a four-seat aircraft missing since 2007 was discovered yesterday in the forest of Saraburi’s Kaeng Khoi district.
The Cessna 172P, which belonged to Bangkok Aviation Centre, was flown by Phakin Thaithanom and Ranop Leaungwilawan from Nakhon Ratchasima on August 9, 2007, for Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport.
It went off radar while flying over the Chet Khot-Kon Sao area in Khao Yai National Park.
Kaeng Khoi police yesterday were alerted by Sombat Pimprasit, an official at the Pong Kon Sao nature learning centre, that while surveying forestland he found the wrecked plane.
There were pilot uniforms, which smelled of human decomposition, and three boots nearby, so he took photographs and alerted police.
Ranob’s mother Wannee Leungwilawan, 56, and Phakin’s father Suthep Thaithanom went to the centre and confirmed from the photographs that it was the missing Cessna. Forestry officials, police and rescue workers were dispatched into four eight-strong teams to the site, 20 kilometres from the learning centre.
Wannee told reporters that she had just visited Japan and got a fortune prediction from a temple that she would get what she had waited for soon, and this discovery seemed to be that, as she had waited five years to find her son.
