The remains that were found on Friday belong to one of the occupants of the plane that crashed on June 5 in the Caland Canal near Rotterdam. The 58-year-old Norwegian pilot has been identified by his family, the police reported on Monday.
The remains of the pilot’s fifteen-year-old son were also found on Sunday. The police believe it was a fatal accident. Although the body was already found on Sunday, it could only be confirmed on Monday that it was the other occupant. The families of the victims have already informed Rhine estuary know that the bodies had been found.
The victims were both found in the area of the crash. The fact that they were not found earlier, according to a police spokesperson, is probably due to the difficult search area. “There are many different depths there. But at some point a body comes up, so we were able to find them.”
Emergency services turned out en masse on 5 June around 7 p.m. when the Rotterdam port service encountered debris from an aircraft. After just under two weeks of searching, including a helicopter and a sonar boat, only a few parts of the plane and belongings of the occupants were found.
It is not yet known what caused the plane to crash. The aircraft would have been en route to France. It was spotted in the skies around 5:30 p.m., after which a police helicopter was called in to make contact. But that did not work, a police spokesperson previously told NU.nl.