South African pilot landed in Wuhan disappears

The whereabouts of the South African pilot that landed at the Tianhe Airport of Wuhan is unknownetn, said the airport source.

Airport source said there was only one pilot in the South African plane that landed in the airport in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province at 13:02 Friday. The pilot checked in the airport hotel Friday night. The plane had accompanied with another South African plane that wrecked over Changsha, capital of neighboring Hunan Province.

The airport hotel told Xinhua that there was only one South African checked in with the name of Ricardo Josesanjos, but no gender or age details.  The pilot stayed in the hotel Friday night and checked out at 07:00 Saturday.

By press time, no one with the airport authority or the Foreign Ministry had known the whereabouts of the pilot.

The wrecked South African plane plunged into Dongting Lake in Hunan, killing its pilot, the only person on board.

Two planes took off from the southern city of Guilin in the morning and were headed to Changsha. Bad weather forced the pilots to divert to Wuhan, but one plane crashed into Dongting Lake before it arrived.

Xinhua's Johannesburg Bureau has identified the dead pilot as Alan Honeyborne, 35, from the South African city of Port Elizabeth.The body was found at 18:30 Friday in the lake.

Source:Xinhua