A Balgownie pilot killed in a plane crash on the Illawarra escarpment late on Tuesday was communicating with a second pilot flying in tandem shortly before the accident.
Experienced airman Robert Greig set out from Wedderburn Airfield, south of Campbelltown, about 7.30pm in a camouflage-coloured ‘‘amateur-built’’ light aircraft.
He flew through rain and heavy fog and became separated from the second pilot en route to Illawarra Regional Airport, about 50 kilometres south.
The men spoke mid-air, but Mr Greig gave no sign he was on a fatal course, Wollongong police local area commander Kyle Stewart said.
‘‘We are advised by the pilot that was accompanying Mr Greig that there was no indication the aircraft had any kind of structural trouble," he said.
Superintendent Stewart said the second pilot alerted police to the difficulties of the flight soon after he landed.
‘‘He was unaware [Mr Greig] was in trouble until he was unable to contact him.’’
Search teams located the plane wreck on the escarpment floor about 400 metres south-west of Austinmer Scout Camp about 8am on Wednesday morning, while Mr Greig’s family waited nearby for news.
Supt Stewart said a mobile phone carried by the father of two helped to narrow down his location.
Rain and a low fog hampered the search effort on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, despite numerous northern suburbs residents contacting police to report seeing and hearing the crash.
Nialla Clarke, of Foothills Road, said she heard ‘‘a zipping sound then a bang’’ at the time of the accident, but dismissed it as thunder.
Thirroul artist Frank Nowlan said he also heard ‘‘a bang’’ about 7.45pm, which he likened to noises he often heard on the nearby train line.
‘‘Sometimes the freight trains come together and they make a loud noise, like they are shunting together,’’ he said.
The search was abandoned around midnight on Tuesday when heavy fog shrouded much of the escarpment, forcing police to call off a search chopper.
Police and 16 SES volunteers from Wollongong, Coniston and Shellharbour units resumed the search from 6.30am on Wednesday.
With low fog still ruling out an aerial search, an SES team was sent to the beach to look upward at the mountain. Another was positioned at the top of the escarpment while two more teams set off from the base of the Sublime Point walking track.
Shortly before 8.30am, Wollongong Police Inspector Phil O'Neill confirmed the wreck had been found with the pilot dead, and the search was now a retrieval operation.
Police Rescue and Forensic Services police entered the bush from Foothills Road about 9am on an all-terrain buggy to begin what was expected to be an ongoing retrieval.
Mr Greig's body was recovered from the wreck about 2pm.
Investigators are expected to return to the site to continue their work on Thursday.
‘‘Given the ... really inhospitable terrain it will take us some time to complete our crime scene examination and to remove Mr Greig’s body from the location, then remove the aircraft remains and have the forensics examination completed,’’ Supt Stewart said.
He said the aircraft would not have carried any sophisticated instrumentation or black box that could give investigators insight into how the crash occurred.
Because the plane is a recreational aircraft, its demise will be investigated by police as well as Recreational Aviation Australia (RAA), which administers more than 3200 aircraft and more than 10,000 members.
RAA CEO Michael Linke said about a third of the organisation's fleet were aircraft designed and ‘‘amateur-built’’ by members for recreational use only.
‘‘While members are free to build their own aircraft, there are processes of oversight to ensure safe standards are adhered to,’’ he said.
‘‘All training is conducted in a factory-built, certified aircraft.’’
Mr Greig, 57, had been flying planes for four decades and had amassed thousands of hours in the air, police have been told.
The question of why he and the tandem pilot set out in Tuesday night's ‘‘marginal’’ conditions, remains.
‘‘That's something that will be clearly subject to our investigations,’’ Supt Stewart said.
‘‘It would have been a very complex manoeuvre to have pilots flying in the conditions that they were flying in last night had they not been equipped appropriately to do so, and/or trained appropriately to do so.’’
Police are seeking witnesses or anyone who heard the crash to make contact via Crimestoppers – 1800 333 000.
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