Police to resume search for missing RAF airman Corrie McKeague at landfill site
Police extend their search for Corrie McKeague at a landfill site, focusing on an area next to where they had looked previously.
Monday 23 October 2017 03:57, UK
Police are to resume their search today for missing RAF serviceman Corrie McKeague at a landfill site.
The new effort comes after an initial 20-week search of the site was unsuccessful.
Officers from Suffolk Constabulary confirmed they will continue searching for the 23-year-old at the Milton landfill site.
The extended search, expected to take four to six weeks, will focus on an area of Cell 22 next to the site of the earlier search.
Police say this is the next most likely area where they could find Mr McKeague, who was last seen on CCTV last year holding a fast food container as he walked through the centre of Bury St Edmunds after a night out, before falling asleep in a shop doorway.
Detectives believed Mr McKeague could have been taken away in a rubbish truck after falling into a bin but police of the landfill site in July after no evidence of his body was found.
However, a police spokesman said: "Careful re-checking of the data available to the Major Investigation Team has concluded the area of the original 20-week search is still the location where there was the highest likelihood of finding Corrie.
"However, the nature of waste disposal and its movement is not a precise science, hence the requirement to extend the search."
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Mr McKeague, who was stationed at RAF Honington in Suffolk, was last seen on September 24, 2016.
His mother Nicola Urquhart spoke to Sky News last month, following the one-year anniversary of her son's disappearance.
She said: "I never imagined we would be here one year later - I can't actually believe it's a year, it has just gone past in a blur.
"It's difficult but I feel like we are doing things that are constructive and proactive to try to assist the investigation.
"There is still so much more that can be done and is getting done by the police and we'll just keep trying to help them. That's how we're coping."