29 Oct 2014

Search for pilot off American Samoa called off

5:12 pm on 29 October 2014

An underwater search off American Samoa for American pilot Babar Suleman and the small plane he and his son were flying has not turned up anything.

The plane carrying the duo crashed in July and while the body of Haris Suleman was found, his father's body is still missing.

Daughter Hiba Suleman says a remotely operated vehicle used in the search could not reach the depth where they believe the plane went down.

The search by Seattle based Global Diving and Salvage was called off after five days scanning the ocean floor without any trace of the plane.

"And we believe that the plane has gone down in deeper waters but the team is just not equipped to send down their instruments, so we had to call it off and maybe we will see in the future if can contract further a company to come and check the deeper waters but for now the search is over."

Hiba Suleman in American Samoa