Wreckage from the small Cessna twin engine airplane that went missing from the radar while flying from Paphos to Beirut was spotted 40 nautical miles from Larnaca on the southeast coast of Cyprus at around 10 p.m. on Wednesday. The small airplane had two people on board, a Lebanese pilot and a Cypriot, who were both on a training flight. Air traffic controllers received no reply when they tried to reach it and there was no indication why it disappeared.

The Cypriot authorities had deployed a helicopter to find it. The ship Spirit of Piraeus sped to the scene to help a huge air and sea rescue operation and spotted the wreckage. The Cyprus Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) said that a rescue mission is in the area with the participation of two UNIFIL warships, including the Greek torpedo boat KAVALOUDIS, to jointly participate in the activities.

An announcement by the JRCC at 6.30 a.m. said that until that time they had identified the wreckage as that of the missing plane but had yet to find the missing people on board.

The last contact with the pilot was when the airplane was flying some 9,000 feet, 45 nautical miles from Larnaca when it turned back. The Cyprus control tower asked the pilot to clarify the reason for this and he had said that he had he faced a small problem. A few minutes later, the plane was at 6,500 feet when it dropped off the radar.