Police To Search Landfill In Hunt For Corrie McKeague
Police are to carry out a search at a landfill site in Cambridgeshire as they continue their hunt for missing RAF serviceman Corrie McKeague.
The 23-year-old gunner hasn't been seen since he disappeared on a night out in Bury St Edmunds in September.
Suffolk Police say one of their lines of inquiry was involving waste collections from the area.
They added that the area of the landfill in Milton, where waste from Bury is taken, has not been used since the early part of the investigation - since police warned it could be searched.
Officers searched a bin lorry, which may have travelled to the site, early in the inquiry.
Corrie's mobile phone was believed to have moved on a similar route to the vehicle but no trace of it was found.
Police say the search of the landfill site will be a considerable task as it contains more than 920 square metres of waste, up to a depth of eight metres.
More: Corrie McKeague Search: Police Identify People Seen On CCTV
They believe it will take a specialist team between six to eight weeks to complete the work required. It's expected to start on Wednesday February 22.
Detective Superintendent Katie Elliott said:
"This is the next logical step in the investigation. Behind the scenes we have been working systematically through the options and we have examined a very broad range of evidence."
“Preparation work is already underway for the search and this will be progressed as quickly as possible. There are some measures that we need to put in place before the full search work starts as, in addition to the pressing need to find Corrie, we also have to consider local residents, site workers and the officers who will be carrying out the job of going through the waste."
"We need to find him and discover what happened to him. While the search may not provide the answers as to what happened it is something we need to do as our investigation continues."
Corrie, a gunner and team medic, based at RAF Honington, was separated from friends while leaving the 'Flex' nightclub on St Andrews Street South.
He was last seen in Bury St Edmunds town centre on CCTV at 3.25am wearing a light pink Ralph Lauren shirt, white jeans and brown suede Timberland boots with light soles.
The last sighting shows him walking from a shop doorway and into a horseshoe-shaped area in Brentgovel Street, with no sign of him emerging.
His mother, Nicola Urquhart, has been leading her own search after criticising the handling of his disappearance by Suffolk Police. She said she would "not stop looking for him".
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