Plane Crashes in Canada—With No One Inside

Search is on for missing University of Michigan student
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 21, 2017 12:25 PM CDT
Plane Crashes in Canada —With No One Inside
This Cessna plane, with registration number N230TX, is believed to have crashed in Canada.   (FlightAware)

A University of Michigan student has seemingly vanished after the wreckage of a small plane he rented was found with no one inside. The unidentified graduate student was last seen renting a single-engine Cessna 172 registered to University of Michigan Flyers Inc. at Ann Arbor Airport last Wednesday, reports Wawa-news.com. Canadian police say the plane crashed 407 nautical miles north of Ann Arbor, in a remote wooded area near the north shore of Lake Superior, around 11:30pm that day, though it had been destined for Harbor Springs, Mich., according to a flight plan. The student was not found with the plane, nor was there evidence he or she was ever at the crash site, reports MLive.

Police say the scene of the crash was undisturbed, with no footprints in the snow, leading Jalopnik to conclude that this tale of a "ghost plane" is "one of the weirdest mysteries of 2017." Some media outlets have speculated that the student put the plane on autopilot and exited at some point before the plane ran out of fuel, but University of Michigan police have not commented on this theory. A rep tells the Chronicle Journal only that police are working with family members on the missing persons case, but the individual "has not been found as of yet." (There's a new theory about the infamous DB Cooper.)

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