by Two Australians have been confirmed dead after a light plane crash in a remote area in the Philippines.
Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santhanam, both from Adelaide, were on board the Cessna 340 when it crashed into a volcano on Saturday.
Chipperfield, Santhanam, a pilot and a crew member were all confirmed dead, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.
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“Sadly there are no survivors,” Wong said at a press conference in Fiji this morning.
“On behalf of the Australian Government, I’d like to extend my deepest sympathy to the families of the two men, Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santhanam, both from Adelaide, my home town, as well as the Filipino nationals involved.”
Two Filipino soldiers also died in an accident while gathering supplies for the search mission.
The two Australians had been working for a geothermal firm based in the Philippines.
The plane crashed on the side of Mount Mayon, a restive volcano which last erupted in 2018.
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The isolation of the volcano itself and the unstable surface of the ascent made reaching the wreckage incredibly difficult.
The wreckage is located near a “permanent danger site” and a determined “no-fly zone” around the volcano.
Rescue teams had to be given permission by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology to begin the high-risk search operations.
Heavy rain and the risk of landslides added difficulty to the search.
More than 200 personnel along with 34 vehicles, 11 drones and four K9 dogs were deployed in the joint search and rescue operation to reach the aircraft in the remote volcano, according to state-run Philippine News Agency.
