Body of pilot in Lubang plane crash found

(Updated 10:55 a.m.) MANILA, Philippines – A rescue team recovered Friday morning the body of a student pilot whose training plane crashed off Lubang Island in Occidental Mindoro Thursday afternoon, a radio report said on Friday. Radio dzBB's Benjie Liwanag Jr. quoted Chief Superintendent Luisito Palmera, Mimaropa regional police director, as saying the body of Dennis Garcia was found off the waters of Tagbac village in the island. Garcia, a student of Air Link International Aviation College, was flying a Tomahawk training plane with body number RP 777 by his lonesome when it crashed into the waters 500 meters off Lubang island on Thursday afternoon. The plane is currently 60 feet deep beneath the sea, the Philippine Coast Guard said earlier. Vice Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo, PCG chief, said the Coast Guard received a request for assistance only on Friday morning from Lubang town in Mindoro Occidental to search for the missing aircraft. Only last Monday night, an Air Force C-130 cargo plane crashed off Davao City shortly after taking off. Authorities have yet to find a substantial portion of the aircraft and determine the cause of the accident. The ill-fated C-1320 aircraft was supposed to pick up members of the Presidential Security Group in Iloilo but eventually lost contact with the command center minutes after it took off from the Davao City International Airport. Authorities said the cargo plane may have crashed about 2.5 nautical miles southeast of Davao City and three nautical miles southwest of the Island Garden City of Samal. - With a report from Johanna Camille Sisante, GMANews.TV