New missing plane tips

New tips focused on the Mabel Lake area are giving hope to the families of two missing people who were last seen taking off from Penticton Airport.

Tammy Neron, the sister of the missing pilot, said she has received more than five tips in recent weeks, and all of them have focused on Mabel Lake, with people either hearing or seeing the plane.

Dominic Neron, 28 and Ashley Bourgeault, 31, left the Penticton Regional Airport at 2:23 p.m. on Nov. 25, 2017, in their burgundy-and-white aircraft.

They were on route to Edmonton, but never arrived. The family believes the plane went down between Penticton and Golden.

“I got a phone call last night about the wing of the plane,” said Neron.

A witness told her they spotted a red colour wing sticking out from the snow around the date the couple vanished.

“They may have saw something and then another one who stated he did see a plane flying in the Mabel Lake area,” she said.

The family was able to obtain Dominic's ‘ForeFlight’ information, which is an app he used to form flight plans.

Neron added that when he was flying to Penticton from Edmonton earlier that day, their aircraft did re-route over Mabel Lake.

“We didn’t have record of it before,” she said. “You can use the path that re-routed as a returnable option so he always had that.”

If he chose this route, the aircraft would been at 6,500 feet and he would not have been picked up by NAV Canada.

“It is validating that it is the right area, we are working on getting a grid of the area,” said Neron.

There is still heavy snow in the area, but Neron said a person from their search group will be heading to Mabel Lake this weekend to talk with witnesses and start planning.

Anyone who thinks they heard or saw the plane near the Mabel Lake area is being asked to contact the family directly at [email protected]