Missing for over a year: plane wreckage with human remains discovered

From Julia Kilian

Lerwick/Uetersen-Heist - Last year, a light aircraft took off from an airfield in northern Germany - then disappeared. Now a wreck has been found off the Scottish coast near the Shetland Islands.

A fishing boat has discovered the remains of a Cessna 172 that was registered in Germany and went missing in the North Sea in September 2023, the British Aircraft Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) has confirmed.

Human remains were found in the aircraft, the identity of which has yet to be established, the police in Scotland announced. According to the British broadcaster BBC, it could be the pilot.

The plane took off from Uetersen-Heist airfield in Schleswig-Holstein on September 30, 2023, the BBC reported.

At the time, a plane had disappeared from radar after around six hours of flight time, according to a report by the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation.

An aircraft was discovered in the North Sea off the Shetland Islands in the North Atlantic on Friday and brought ashore on Sunday, police said . The local authorities are working closely with British air accident investigators and German authorities to investigate the circumstances.