Searches have been underway for several hours for an ultralight plane that left Capo d’Orlando, in the province of Messina, and headed to Sibari, in the province of Cosenza: it appears to have disappeared along the Cosenza Tyrrhenian Sea, in the Fuscaldo area, with two people on board. It is a two-seater high-wing Tecnam P2008, which left on Sunday at 9.30 am from the Capo d’Orlando airfield runway, managed by the town’s Volo Club, in the Tavola Grande district. The two people on board, Carlo Arnulfo, a 64-year-old lawyer resident in Rome, driving the two-seater, and Angela Buccico, a 55-year-old colleague, resident in Matera, would both be expert pilots.
What happened
The two-seater aircraft, piloted by Arnulfo and with his partner on board, should have reached Sibari between 10.30 and 11 in the morning, after taking off from Capo d’Orlando, but it never arrived.
The alarm was raised yesterday evening, August 16, after the family members of the two people on board reported it. The last contact was at 10.30 on Sunday morning, when a photo of the island of Stromboli was sent from the plane to a relative.
Following the families’ report, the Prefecture’s search plan for missing persons was launched.
The search for the missing ultralight in Calabria: how to find a plane
The Fire Brigade of the Cosenza Command are combing the area between Fuscaldo and Falconara Albanese, up to the mountainous hinterland, with helicopter and drones: the Fire Brigade have established a search area using telephone cells (the last cells connected to the two missing persons are those between Fiumefreddo and Fuscaldo) and IMSI Catcher technologies are being used, capable of identifying and triangulating the position of cell phones even in the absence of network coverage ordinary.
Staff from the Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPA) enabled to remotely pilot drones, a helicopter from the Salerno Fire Brigade and a SAR (Search and Rescue) version helicopter also intervened to support the search.
According to the rescuers, it is unlikely that the plane could have ended up in the sea: in fact, these aircraft usually travel close to the coast and swimmers should therefore have noticed a possible fall and landing. However, searches continue at sea and search teams are also active on land.
