TONY EASTLEY: Well Richard Leahy is a commercial pilot from Kiunga Aviation and has been flying in Papua New Guinea for the past 40 years.
He described to Brigid Glanville what the area is like where the plane is thought to have come down.
RICHARD LEAHY: It's typical New Guinea terrain, it's sort of in the shadow of the Owen Stanley Mountains, Kokoda - it's on the northern fall. It's quite a big valley, it's much higher on the southern side, which is the top of the Owen Stanley mountains, you know, it was clouded up this morning because I was flying myself and I heard other aeroplanes flying, holding their waiting to get in.
BRIGID GLANVILLE: And that sort of route from Port Moresby to Kokoda, what would the traffic be like along there this time of the year taking tourists?
RICHARD LEAHY: Oh not much, you know. I suppose for the day the aircraft had got lost there was another one there, two, maybe another couple, two or three, there wouldn't be much traffic.
BRIGID GLANVILLE: They haven't found the emergency beacon, or the plane, is it the sort of area do you think where they will be able to get to the wreckage? What's the likely chance of finding it?
RICHARD LEAHY: Oh they'll find it, there's no doubt about that at all. It's sort of a bit strange there's no beacon went off really. The beacons are generally set into the tail and the tail is normally the least most, least damaged part of the aircraft in a crash.
BRIGID GLANVILLE: What does that say that there was no emergency beacon?
RICHARD LEAHY: Well it might mean that it was cleaned up by a tree or something if he went into the trees, and got knocked out or something, you know, it doesn't say anything specifically, it just means that it's not going off and it should be.
BRIGID GLANVILLE: Is it the sort of thing that given another plane this morning you said you heard was held up, should they have been flying in those sort of conditions?
RICHARD LEAHY: No they're not held up, what they do, you get into a place, I mean I do it myself, and if you can't get in there because of the cloud you sit on top of the cloud and you just fly around until the cloud burns off a bit by the sun, the sun burns it off a bit. Or you find a hole you can go down and get underneath the cloud and land that way.
There's nothing sort of unusual about it or dangerous about it. We do it, we all do it from time to time, I mean I probably do it about 10 times a year myself, it's quite a normal procedure. There's no weather reports given out from these places a lot of them, so you just go out there and it might be beautiful fine day, but the valleys you get clouds, you know in the valley, and it sort of stays there for a bit until the sun burns it off.
TONY EASTLEY: Richard Leahy a commercial pilot in Papua New Guinea speaking to Brigid Glanville.