Pilot Des Porter and his wife Kath were flying with two other couples when their ruby-red DH-84 Dragon set off its emergency beacon in low cloud near the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
The search resumed this morning after the 1934 De Havilland DH84 Dragon biplane disappeared yesterday afternoon, flying from an airshow at Monto, near Bundaberg, to Caboolture.
The search area stretches for 540 square nautical miles west of Gympie and south to Nambour. The area is too big for a ground search, authorities say.
Mr Porter escaped a crash in the same model of plane nearly 60 years ago. His father and older brother perished.
Grave fears were held for those on board in what could be Australia's worst air disaster since 2005.
The last known contact with Mr Porter was just before 2.45pm when the plane's distress beacon was activated. The plane had taken off from an airshow in the town of Monto, bound for its homebase at Caboolture.
Mr Porter's scarlet DH84 Dragon was one of four such aircraft still in the air. A distress call from the plane was picked up by a Nine Network news helicopter soon after 1pm yesterday. The Nine pilot said Mr Porter was having difficulty positioning himself and wanted assistance.
Mr Porter then radioed air traffic control in Brisbane for help. At that point, the plane was 45 nautical miles north of Caboolture, The Australian has been told.
The emergency beacon was activated at 2.45pm, possibly at the instigation of air traffic controllers in a bid to pinpoint the plane's location.
This was 15 minutes before Mr Porter was due to touch down with his five passengers, when the plane would have been perilously low on fuel.
There were reports last night he had been forced to fly low, on his limited instrumentation, by a heavy cloud cover that enveloped the Sunshine Coast.
After operating briefly, the distress beacon went off the air, compounding the already difficult job of finding where the plane had gone down. Search and rescue helicopters were in the vicinity of the presumed crash by 3.30pm.
Potentially, the crash is Australia's worst since 15 people died in the Lockhart River air disaster on Cape York Peninsula in May 2005. Five people were killed the following year when a plane on a skydiving run went down at Willowbank, west of Brisbane.
Mr Porter's love of the DH84 biplane runs deep. He was 10 when he was pulled out of the wreckage of his father Stan's plane, seconds before it sank in a creek on crashing south of Brisbane in October 1954.
He told the Wynnum Herald in 2004 that he had ``no fear of flying'' and believed he was ``miraculously saved that day'' in 1954.
''If the little fella up there wants me to go, I'll know,'' he said at the time.
''Don't get me wrong, I do everything you can possibly do, safety wise, but if it's (crashing) going to happen, then doing all that isn't going to change anything.''
The twin-engine aircraft had been taken up to scatter the ashes of a friend of Stan Porter, and Des and his 13-year-old brother Keith were both with him. The plane was circling at low altitude when its wing tip hit a tree, sending it spiralling to earth. Three men who swam to his rescue heard Des screaming: "Help me! Get me out!"
In another twist, Stan Porter and his wife had survived a separate crash two years earlier in the DH84 that Mr Porter was flying yesterday. The task of rebuilding the plane took years.
Caboolture Aero Club president John Dawson said his friend was a legend in civil aviation circles and it would be a "hell of a story" if he walked away from another crash. "I hope that he's safe," Mr Dawson said.
Monto Fly-In event organiser Myles Breitkreutz said he had spoken to Mr Porter yesterday morning as he fuelled up for the flight to Caboolture. Last night, he was hoping for the best. "I know the capabilities of Des as a pilot," he said. "We're hoping he may have landed as a precaution and is waiting to be found."
Mr Breitkreutz said Mr Porter had been at the Fly-In to conduct joyfights to fund raise for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Mr Porter, a mechanic by trade, owns his own automotive business in the Brisbane bayside suburb of Wynnum.
Colleague Mitchell Adams said Mr Porter was a good boss who was loved his DH-84 plane and adorned the walls of the workshop with pictures of it.
''He loved it. He also loved his cars, his Chryslers and his Valiants,'' he said.
''He was pretty good; he was the best boss I've ever had.''
He said he and his colleagues were waiting on news of the full-scale search, which started at 8 o'clock after the weather hampered the search.
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