Police have begun trawling a landfill site in their latest attempt to find a missing member of Britain’s military who vanished six months ago.
Specialist search teams are expecting to spend up to 10 weeks searching through the 10,000 sq ft tip – which is 25ft deep in places – sifting 8,000 tons of material as they try to find Corrie McKeague.
RAF gunner Mr McKeague, 23, went missing on September 24 last year after a night out with friends in Bury St Edmunds, eastern England. He disappeared without a trace in the early hours. He was based at nearby RAF Honington.
After an exhaustive operation to locate him costing in excess of £300,000 ($365,000), police are now working on the theory that a refuse truck picking up commercial waste from bins in the area of the town where he was last seen may have transported him to the landfill site.
The truck is known to have been in Bury St Edmunds collecting rubbish on September 24. It is also known to have taken a route to the landfill site at Milton, near Cambridge, 30 miles away which is believed to have coincided with signals from Mr McKeague’s mobile phone, according to Suffolk Police.
Early investigations found the truck was carrying a load of 11kg (24lbs), but officers have since learned it was in fact carrying more than 100kg (220 lbs) – “far higher than originally thought”. The discrepancy is considered to be a genuine mistake rather than anything suspicious.
Mr McKeague’s father Martin, a former refuse collector in Scotland, said: “It’s haunting to think Corrie may have been in one of those bins.”
His mother, Nicola Urquhart, said she thinks it is “just a matter of time” before her son’s body is discovered. She said: “I can only pray that Corrie is found quickly and that we are able to get answers as to how this could have happened.”
In December Mr McKeague’s girlfriend, April Oliver, revealed she is pregnant with his child.
