 I'm the regional chief superintendent currently for the North Coast region and the Queensland Police Service is supporting AMSAR in an ongoing search relating to a missing aircraft which has six persons on board. The aircraft left Monto Airport yesterday afternoon and was travelling to Cabulcha and to date no sign has been located of that aircraft. This is a very difficult time for the family and we are supporting the family through a liaison process and all of the families of those on board and we'll continue to do that. The operation itself is under the leadership of Superintendent Terry Borland. He's coordinating the major incident room which is running out of the Maruti Door Police Communication Centre. So I'll hand over to Terry now to explain some of the finer details and we'll be able to answer some questions after that. Thanks Terry. I'm getting in trouble for that. Currently the search is being conducted by a number of air assets by Australian Marine Safety Authority. We've got seven helicopters and one fixed wing aircraft currently searching a location west of Imble and once we find some sort of a point to put a land search in we have a contingency in readiness to move in and conduct the search. So there will be a ground search? Once we have a location that we can deploy our land search capabilities to and when we identify that point of location then we'll deploy them into that area. How many people are on standby? From our point of view the country is a difficult country so we'll be looking at the capabilities of the people that we're going to put in there. We need to at first establish a point and there's no pointing us rushing off until such time as we can get ourselves some sort of location to deploy our ground search. How would you describe the size of the search area? At this time the search area that's being conducted is the 700 square mile area of search and we've got a number of helicopters in there currently looking. Do you think that it ran out of fuel or ran into trouble? That's purely speculation. We don't know what's happened at this stage. Currently our priority is to locate the aircraft and then we'll see where to from there. The pilot works with an emergency beacon. What circumstances would the signal go weak and not be able to find it anymore? Again our information is that the beacon was active. It doesn't seem to be active now. Why it's not active we don't know. What time was it activated yesterday? The last time that we had any indication of that was around 2 o'clock this afternoon and then the search was conducted in terms of where the last known activation was. Can you confirm that this plane was one that was involved in an early crash back in the 50s that killed the pilot's father and brother or he's restored it? Is it the same plane? That's information on my word. The pilot was fairly experienced, wasn't he? Our information is that he's an experienced pilot, yes. So with the land search that's on the standby, can you give us an approximate number of people that you'll be thinking of what sort of resources or biomechs? Again, we've got a lot of capabilities in terms of land search. We'll consider our options in relation to those capabilities when we've got better information as to what area we need to search. The terrain out there is quite rugged and it's fairly intensely, heavily timbered and difficult to get at. So once we know a location we can then get a better appraisal as to what we need to deploy. How optimistic are police that they will find these people alive? How optimistic are police that these people will be found safe and well? We're always hopeful that we will find the best result and that's what we're aiming at. The conditions I guess are a little bit better for the search today? Yeah, yesterday was heavily overcast and difficult for the search capabilities today. The cloud cover has lifted a bit and certainly the aircraft have had a better opportunity to get out there and search. The land search will involve police only or SES or a whole range of people? No, as I said, we need to assess that once we get a location and what sort of capabilities we need to deploy in there. So when we know, we'll be able to make a better appraisal as to what we need to deploy. How many officers have you got in your major instant room here? At this time we've got about 10 officers in various positions within our major instant room, collating information, gathering information and providing caskings. Are you happy with the number of aircraft, seven helicopters in one plane? Isn't that enough to cover such a big area? Australian Marine Safety Authority, they're the ones that are deploying the aircraft. That's their capabilities not ours and certainly for mine there's a very good capability out there at the moment. There are contingencies and arrangements that work together in these types of situations. The Australian Marine Search and Rescue Authority are the coordinating and initial response agency for any missing aircraft in this type of situation. So they have the lead on that and that's their responsibility and we're working with them. Superintendent Boorland has said the responsibility will shift to the Queensland Police Service when the aircraft is located, wherever that may be, and we'll develop our capacities based on what we see then rather than what we are speculating on now. Would you call for volunteers? No. How confident are you guys that you're searching the right area? Well you can only base your search based on the known information at the time. That advice is fairly rigid and well-credentialed. So we believe that the Australian Marine Search and Rescue Authority have a clear picture of where to search and that's their responsibility. That's what they do, they do it very effectively and efficiently and I'm sure they're doing a great job. How long will they have to go for? Well as long as it needs to go. Do you know what they were doing? Were they on a charity flight or just a joyride or? Well the information at this time is that the aircraft was returning from Monto to Cabocha and that six people were on board. Was it a charity flight? I mean he took a lot of people up to Cabocha. Well at this stage we know that there were six people on board and that the aircraft was returning to Cabocha. To confirm that flight was due to land at the quarter past two? The aircraft was returning to Cabocha on a flight from Monto to Cabocha. Where are the passengers from? Are they from the Cabocha? They're people from South East Queensland. From Brisbane? South East Queensland. And Mr Porter's partner was also on board? There were six people we believe were on board. That process will need to be established in finality. But at this stage we believe six people were on board. Are there medical crews on standby as well? Well there's a whole capacity. It just needs to be dependent on the location of the aircraft when it's found and then the capacity to resource that when we get to that. How quickly will the police respond once the aircraft's been found? We're ready to go now. We're developing our contingencies for a whole range of situations and we're ready to go. Is this sort of thing being a plan in place in case something like this happens? Well tragically this is not the first time in Queensland there's been an event of this nature. Queensland Police Service has always worked with other agencies and coordinating bodies in these types of situations. The processes work very well and we'll do so on this occasion and we're ready and supporting other agencies and working together. So thank you very much. Great.