Missing man Pierre-Antoine Paludet's station wagon as it was found at Haumoana. Photo/Supplied
Missing man Pierre-Antoine Paludet's station wagon as it was found at Haumoana. Photo/Supplied
Police are planning another aerial search of the sea off the Hawke's Bay coast in their hunt for missing French visitor Pierre-Antoine Paludet.
The plans were being considered late yesterday with still no indication of what had happened to 32-year-old Paludet since the last confirmed sighting of him about 6.30pmlast Friday, beside his blue and silver-grey station wagon in a car park near the river mouth at Haumoana.
Detective Sergeant Martin James, who heads a Hawke's Bay police team investigating the disappearance, said that with every day police and the man's family in France have become more and more worried about Paludet's safety.
While no one had reported seeing the man entering the sea, James said the big concern was the area of water across Hawke Bay, and added: "We are looking at putting up a fixed-wing aircraft in the next few days if nothing comes of the searches."
"At this stage he is very much regarded as a missing person," James said.
The searches included a return to the riverside at Haumoana yesterday where police have been hoping to find anything that could point to what had happened to Paludet or what he had been planning.
Police were alerted at the weekend when residents at Haumoana had noted Paludet did not appear to have returned to the station wagon in which he had arrived on January 10 and in which he had been sleeping.
The station wagon appeared to contain all Paludet's belongings, and police had no description of what he was wearing at the time he was last seen.
An aerial search on Sunday also failed to find anything to solve the mystery.
From March last year, the Frenchman spent about five weeks as a kiwifruit picker last year with Opotiki Packing and Coolstorage in Te Kaha, in the eastern Bay of Plenty.
QC Supervisor, Lee Kerei, remembers him as a very friendly man but said his English was very limited.
They hired him after an off-chance meeting at their shop when he expressed an interest in working and they hadn't seen him since April.
She can't remember what he said he was going to do, but believed he was planning to travel with other backpackers he had met while staying on their section in a tent.
She didn't want to think the worst and believed "if he had run into a bit of trouble with someone it's because they've taken advantage with him and how he is because he is a really friendly guy."
Mrs Kerei noted that "if he had gone for a swim, he wouldn't have gone far from the shore".
"I hope they find him. We were quite sad to see that he was missing. Once you got to know him he was a really nice guy."
