Below is one of a few newspaper articles on Hadleigh, it was sent to us last week. The picture is not the best quality.
THE family of missing Territory pilot Hadleigh Smith believe their loving son is now with God.
Mr Smith’s father Stewart broke down as he spoke to the Northern Territory News last night about his 23-year-old son’s disappearance.
“Hadleigh was a Christian man who loved God,” he said from his Sydney home.
“We surely believe he is now with God. His spirit has gone to be with the Lord and we believe we will see him again one day.”
Hadleigh has been missing since Thursday.
The Mission Aviation pilot failed to arrive at Mata Mata in his GA8 airvan after leaving his base at Elcho Island off the coast of Arnhem Land earlier that day.
An air, ground and sea search was sparked and on Friday some debris from the plane was found floating in the water in Buckingham Bay about 20km from the island. Daily searches have failed to find any trace of Hadleigh or the aircraft wreckage.
But his father - an aircraft engineer for 30 years - said: “I am a realist and know what’s going on. It’s a terrible hell of an experience for us - nothing can prepare you for this.
“But he’s been missing now for five days.
“If he’d been on the coast they would’ve found him by now.
“We’ve come to the conclusion that everything has been done.
“The main thing now is to find out what happened - if we can find this out then hopefully it can save some other young pilot’s life.”
Mr Smith said his wife and three other children were struggling to come to terms with the fact their son and brother will never come home.
“His younger brother celebrated his 21st birthday on the day he went missing,” he said. “One of his older sisters is expecting her first child and the other is set to be married in December.”
He said he would like to thank everyone that has shown their support and helped in the search effort, in particular NT Police and community members.
He last spoke to his son the Monday before his disappearance.
“We share interests in aviation and riding motorbikes, so we were talking about all the father and son things,” he said.
“We just bought him a motorbike and were working out how we were going to get it up to him.
“We were also talking about how he was looking forward to coming down for his sister’s wedding in December.”
Mr Smith said his son was an experienced pilot despite his age.
“He was actually able to fly an aircraft before he could drive a car,” he said.
“His flying was a real passion for him.”
