Brazil rescuers find wreck of plane carrying Britons
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Rescuers found on Tuesday the wreckage of a light aircraft that disappeared four days ago along Brazil's northeastern coast carrying four British businessmen and two Brazilian pilots.
Brazil's air force said it had spotted the wreckage of the Cessna aircraft and that it was now concentrating its search for survivors in that area, along the coast of Bahia state.
"It washed up on the beach 90 to 95 km (about 57 miles) north of Ilheus. They're still carrying on with the search," said Nadia Nightingale, an official with the British consulate in Rio de Janeiro who is in the area of the accident.
The Cessna 310, owned by AeroStar airline, went missing on a flight from Salvador to the coastal town of Ilheus on Friday afternoon, a spokesman for the airline told Reuters. Its last contact with the Ilheus control tower was at 5:43 p.m. local time, nine minutes before its scheduled landing, he said.
The four missing British passengers were identified as Sean Woodhall, Ricky Every, Alan Trevor Kempson, and Nigel Young Hodges. The two Brazilians were pilots. The four were prospecting for potential real estate development projects along the coast, another AeroStar official said.
Bad weather had prevented them from taking a helicopter in Salvador earlier on Friday, Globo news agency reported.
(Reporting by Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Sandra Maler)
