Australian engineers Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santhanam killed in Philippines plane crash

Two Australian engineers have been confirmed dead after a light plane crashed near a volcano in the Philippines.

Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santhanam, both from South Australia, were on board a Cessna RPC340 that crashed after leaving Bicol International Airport in Albay at 6.43am on Saturday. 

Pilot Rufino James Crisostomo Jr and mechanic Joel Martin also died.

‘Sadly there are no survivors,’ foreign affairs minister Penny Wong said at a press conference in Fiji this morning.

‘On behalf of the Australian Government, I’d like to extend my deepest sympathy to the families of the two men, Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santhanam, both from Adelaide, my home town, as well as the Filipino nationals involved.’

Two Filipino soldiers also died in an accident while gathering supplies for the rescue mission.

It’s understood the six-seater Cessna 340 aircraft was bound for the capital Manila following the engineers’ site visit at Bac-Man Geothermal Power Plant.

Fears are held for two Australian men after a plane crashed near the crater of a volcano in the Phillipines (pictured, wreckage of a small plane near the crater of Mayon Volcano)

Engineers Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santhanam, who are from South Australia, were on board a Cessna 340 aircraft that left Bicol International Airport for Manila on Saturday

However, communication with the aircraft’s pilot was lost three minutes after the plane’s departure. 

The aircraft was last seen five minutes after leaving the airport before it was reported missing.

The Bureau of Fire Protection in Albay said the wreckage was photographed at the forested boundary between the towns of Guinobatan and Camalig.

The plane had taken off during moderate rain. 

Chief of the Camalig fire station, Senior Inspector Hamor Laguilles, relayed an account from a village chief who saw the aircraft and said it was ‘flying too low, (emitting) smoke and making a loud crumbling sound before it disappeared’.

More than 200 personnel along with 34 vehicles, 11 drones and four K9 dogs were deployed in the joint search and rescue operation to reach the aircraft in the remote volcano, according to state-run Philippine News Agency. 

The wreckage was located near a ‘permanent danger site’ and a determined ‘no-fly zone’ around the volcano. 

Communication with the pilot was lost three minutes after the plane took off. The plane was last seen five minutes after leaving the airport before it was reported missing

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More than 200 personnel along with 34 vehicles, 11 drones and four K9 dogs were deployed in the joint search and rescue operation to reach the aircraft in the remote volcano, according to state-run Philippine News Agency.