The public is being asked to help locate a 73-year-old pilot who has been missing since leaving Oshawa Executive Airport on Friday (August 14) for a flight north of Oshawa.
David Douglas departed the Oshawa airport at 8:32 a.m. in a light blue and yellow amateur-built aircraft and was expected to return to the airport, but did not return as expected and has not been located since.
According to a media advisory issued on behalf of Douglas’s family on Saturday, he is believed to be somewhere in the vicinity of Scugog, the Kawartha Lakes, Balsam Lake, Sturgeon Lake, or Cameron Lake.
Anyone in that corridor who saw or heard a low-flying light aircraft on Friday morning is being asked to call 911 immediately.
Douglas was the only person aboard the single-engine fixed-wing experimental aircraft, which has a light blue fuselage with yellow accent striping along its side.
The family is particularly asking boaters, anglers, and cottagers on Lake Scugog, Balsam Lake, Sturgeon Lake, and Cameron Lake to come forward with any information.
Marina operators, Trent-Severn Waterway lock station staff, pilots and personnel at airports in Oshawa, Lindsay, Peterborough, and Kawartha Lakes, and property owners with trail cameras, dashcams, or security cameras along the flight corridor are also being asked to check for anything that could assist the search.
Anyone who heard an aircraft flying unusually low Friday morning, or heard an aircraft engine change pitch or stop, should call 911.
Anyone with relevant camera footage from Friday is being asked to preserve the footage and contact police.
If the aircraft is found, members of the public are being warned not to approach it because doing so could pose a safety risk and disturb evidence needed by searchers.
The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Trenton is the search authority for missing civilian aircraft in Canada. Ground jurisdictions along the probable flight corridor include Durham Regional Police Service in Oshawa and Scugog and the Ontario Provincial Police in the City of Kawartha Lakes.
Members of the public with possible sightings are being directed to call 911. Douglas’s family has also established a contact line at 416-520-3454.
