{"id":66486,"date":"2026-08-06T12:53:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T12:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/66486\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T12:53:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T12:53:37","slug":"one-year-after-gregory-vaughan-and-kim-worner-disappeared-in-plane-mystery-friends-still-hope-for-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/66486\/","title":{"rendered":"One year after Gregory Vaughan and Kim Worner disappeared in plane mystery, friends still hope for answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year on from the disappearance of a couple and their plane after taking off from a small airport in northern Tasmania, the mystery is no closer to being solved.<\/p>\n

Gregory Vaughan, 72, Kim Worner, 66, and their dog Molly were aboard the bright green two-seater, single-engine Bristell S-LSA when it left George Town airport at around 12:45pm on August 2, 2025, for a flight across Bass Strait.<\/p>\n

They were due to make a fuel stop in regional Victoria before continuing to Hillston in New South Wales, west of Condobolin.<\/p>\n

They have not been seen since.<\/p>\n

Friends of Mr Vaughan were initially spooked when, being aware of the couple’s plans, the take-off time came and went with no radio contact.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The couple were in a plane similar to this two-seater Bristell S-LSA. (Supplied: Tasmania Police)<\/p>\n

Stephen Ross, treasurer of the George Town Airport Association, was one of those who took to the sky to search for his friends once it became clear something was amiss.<\/p>\n

“The typical process that Greg would follow with radio calls \u2026 that wasn’t made,” Mr Ross told ABC Northern Tasmania on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“One of the guys at the airport, one of [Greg’s] friends, just happened to be listening to the radio and noticed that. So he got concerned pretty early on.”<\/p>\n

With the alarm raised with authorities and friends of Mr Vaughan’s taking it upon themselves to look for the couple using their own aircraft, it was hoped they would be found soon after, but it was not to be.<\/p>\n

“People look back at the last 12 months and just wondered what exactly happened, really,” Mr Ross said.<\/p>\n

“It’s not as raw emotionally as it was when it first happened, but there’s still emotion around it.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The coast of northern Tasmania as seen from a police aircraft during a search for Gregory Vaughan and Kim Worner in August, 2025. (Supplied: Tasmania Police)<\/p>\n

Mr Ross said after “an extensive effort” by authorities, the official search was called off.<\/p>\n

“I certainly applaud them for the resources and their diligence at doing the searching.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“After that, we would go out and do some flights along the coast or the ocean to see if anything was visible.”<\/p>\n

No trace of the aircraft has been found.<\/p>\n

Police said Mr Vaughan had not made a distress call<\/a> and believed there were no active tracking devices on board the aircraft.<\/p>\n

Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said the pilot made no contact with authorities during the flight.<\/p>\n

Friends remember couple a year onFriends of couple missing in light plane alerted by lack of radio call<\/a><\/p>\n

Friends of a missing pilot feared something had gone wrong soon after take-off, and were so worried they took to the sky to search.<\/p>\n

Mr Ross said there had been an informal gathering to remember the pair last week.<\/p>\n

“We enjoyed a pizza and a beer and told some stories about Kim and Greg, to remember them.<\/p>\n

“Greg had worked in aviation for his entire career, starting as a tradesman in the US working on aircraft and then moving into one of the engine manufacturing companies as an engineering and safety expert.”<\/p>\n

Mr Ross said he came to know the couple after they had “moved to Tassie” following Mr Vaughan’s retirement.<\/p>\n

“I’d see him every couple of weeks, get to know him over a cup of tea and going for a flight or helping him with his aircraft or him helping me with mine.”\"Flight<\/p>\n

The flight path of an AMSA Challenger jet during the search effort. (FlightRadar24)<\/p>\n

Mr Ross said he was unaware of any advances in methods of finding missing aircraft.<\/p>\n

“The technologies that were available 12 months ago haven’t changed. So there’s been no particular breakthrough there.”<\/p>\n

He said he hoped that one day, something would be found to give people the answers they need.<\/p>\n

“If anyone on the northern coast of Tassie or the Flinders Island chain, for example, who might notice really some wreckage or part of an aircraft, a light green coloured item wash up on the shore, please put your hand up,” he asked.<\/p>\n

“Contact the police and tell them what you found and where you found it \u2014 and that may help us unravel the mystery around Greg and Kim’s disappearance.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year on from the disappearance of a couple and their plane after taking off from a small…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[83412,22,21,83409,83411,83407,83408,83410],"class_list":["post-66486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-amsa","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-automatic-dependent-surveillance-broadcast","tag-bristell-s-lsa","tag-gregory-vaughan","tag-kim-worner","tag-transponder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}