The police search for missing Australian teenager Phoebe Bishop entered its 10th day after she was last seen on her way to the Bundaberg airport to reportedly meet her boyfriend but never boarded the flight.
Police dogs and helicopters joined the search for the 17-year-old on Sunday, which was expanded to bushland and waterways in the Good Night Scrub National Park.
Ms Bishop has not been seen or heard from since 15 May, said Queensland police.
According to a family member, Ms Bishop never checked in for her flight. “She didn’t check in for her flight to visit her boyfriend who she spoke to on the phone at 8.30am,” they said, reported The Sun.
“Her phone has been switched off from this point. She hasn’t contacted anyone at all, no one has seen her,” the family member told the news outlet.
She was last seen on the morning of 15 May when she was being driven to the Bundaberg airport by her housemates.
Footage shared online showed a grey Hyundai ix35 driving along the backstreet of Gin Gin. The car model was allegedly the same as the one Ms Bishop was travelling in on the day of her disappearance, according to the police.
The video was reportedly from two hours after Ms Bishop was dropped to the Bundaberg airport for her flight to Brisbane. She was then scheduled to travel to Perth to meet her boyfriend.
The police have seized the grey Hyundai ix35 with a Queensland registration 414EW3 and declared it an active crime scene.
Earlier, acting inspector Ryan Thompson said police were still trying to determine “whether Pheobe was actually dropped off at the airport, and whether she knew the driver of the SUV”. He said: “We’re still working together to piece together her movements on that day.”
Forensic police officials have also collected some items in brown evidence bags but it is not immediately clear if they are connected to the case.
Facebook users posted photos of their front door lights on the profile of Ms Bishop’s mother Kylie Johnson, which they say was to “guide Phoebe home”.
“May our shining lights, light up your path Phoebe,” one user said, posting a picture of a lit-up front porch of their house.
Ms Bishop’s mother prayed for her daughter’s safe return. “I’m praying that the lights of Gin Gin and the world guide you back to me, guide you back to us, guide you back to your siblings and our family. Our lives and existence is nothing without you in our lives,” she wrote. “We just need to know where you are and if your safe.”
