The family of a man and his three grandchildren who died in a plane crash near Canberra on Friday have today said "there are no words to describe the grief" they are feeling.
The pilot was identified as 65-year-old Peter Nally, the grandfather of the three children on board, who are understood to be aged 11, nine and six.
He and the three children were all killed in the crash.
Their grieving family thanked their extended family, friends and local community for "the overwhelming support" they are receiving.
Nally took off from Canberra Airport about 2.30pm on Friday in a five-seater Cirrus S-R-22 with his three grandchildren, en route to Armidale.
The control tower can be heard clearing his journey in an audio recording obtained by 9News before they realised something was wrong.
"All stations be advised, a light aircraft has dropped off radar," an air traffic control officer can be heard saying on the recording.
The control tower tried to contact the plane 12 times before flagging the issue.
It was about 30 minutes into the flight at 9000 feet when the plane ran into trouble.
It took one minute for the light aircraft to fall from the sky and have a catastrophic landing at Gundaroo near Lake George.
9News understands the children lived in the Armidale area and were on their way home when the crash occurred.
Nally is from Bunya on northern Brisbane's northern fringes, and it's understood the plane is registered to a Queensland flying club.
Yesterday NSW Police Superintendent Cath Bradbury said there were no survivors following the "catastrophic collision".
The wreckage of the small single-engine aircraft was found after 3pm on a property in Hadlow Street in Gundaroo in the NSW Southern Tablelands.
"We're still working on who was in the plane and how many, we do not know those details at this stage, it is very early in our investigation," Bradbury said.
Police worked through the night with a crime scene.
A small grassfire started as a result of the crash, which the Rural Fire Service extinguished.
It is understood a local resident saw the smoke and called emergency services.
"The collision is heavy impact, which has caused a fire," Bradbury said.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has launched an investigation into the incident.
"There's minimal witnesses obviously being in a remote area," Bradbury said.
"There's not a lot of other avenues for determining what happened.
"At this stage we will be processing our crime scene investigation tonight and hopefully establish over a period of time what the cause was."
