MISSING: Search Underway for Missing Plane West of Coffs Harbour

UPDATE 9:42am:

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has located the crash site of a missing Mooney M20 in rugged terrain in the Mid North Coast area.

AMSA had responded to reports of the overdue aircraft since Friday morning.

The Mooney M20 with two people on board, departed from Murwillumbah at 6:30am on Friday, with it expected to arrive in Taree at 8am.

About 6:30am on Saturday the Westpac rescue helicopter located the crash site in the search area about 27 kilometres west of Coffs Harbour.

The search area was based on the last contact with the aircraft’s transponder.

Westpac 4 was unable to winch a person down due to poor weather conditions with rain and low clouds extending to ground level.

NSW Police are now attempting to access the site from the ground. This is will take some time as the site is located in steep and heavily wooded terrain and weather conditions in the area remain poor.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau have been informed and will be responsible for any investigation into the crash.

More to come...

EARLIER:

A search is underway for a light aircraft missing after it faded off the radar west of Coffs Harbour.

The light plane departed Murwillumbah at 6:30am on Friday, scheduled to arrive in Taree at 8am.

According to Police, the last known communications were about 7.30am.

They have been told the aircraft was missing about 11.45am on Friday.

Triple M understands that two people were on board the Mooney M20 at the time.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority have tasked the Westpac Rescue Helicopter and a search-and-rescue jet with the search.

The search is scouting bushland about 27km inland from Coffs Harbour, but cloudy weather conditions had complicated the search effort.

Police have setup a base in Dorrigo.