Missing Corrie McKeague’s dad is ‘waking up to the reality’ as police are searching landfill site for his son’s body
Cops are searching a huge landfill site close to where the RAF airman's phone was last tracked five months ago
MISSING Corrie McKeague's dad has said he is "waking up to the reality" police are searching a landfill site for his son's body.
Cops are searching a huge landfill site close to where the RAF airman's phone was last tracked five months ago.
Dad Martin McKeague wrote on Facebook: "Make no mistake, this part is no longer just about looking for Corrie’s phone, or witnesses or CCTV footage. This is about searching for his body in a 26 foot deep 900 meter wide rubbish site because they believe my boy is in there somewhere.
"We were completely taken aback; despite knowing through all these months that one day we might wake up to that reality.
"So now we wait. And it’s a grueling, agonising, gut-wrenching kind of waiting. And now we’re going to ask all of you to wait here with us to see what happens next."
Corrie, 23, disappeared after a night out drinking with pals in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in September.
He was last seen on CCTV entering an alleyway - but his phone was tracked to Barton Mills, 12.5 miles northwest of the Suffolk town.
The speed and direction his phone was travelling at matches the route of a lorry heading to a landfill site.
Police are now preparing to search the eight-metre deep site off the A14 near Cambridge.
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The search is expected to begin on February 22 and will last around 10 weeks.
Suffolk Police said they have not yet searched the site as they couldn't rule out another vehicle took the same route.
They also suggested Corrie may have been using his phone at the time it was giving out signals.
Det Supt Katie Elliott said: "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 know that physically searching the site has the potential to cause an increase in odour and we hope residents will understand that we and the site owners have taken this into consideration when making a decision to go ahead with the search.
"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."
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