Corrie Mckeague: Military equipment 'used in search for missing airman'

Corrie Mckeague was last seen walking alone in Bury St Edmunds

Military surveillance equipment has been made available to police searching for missing RAF serviceman Corrie Mckeague.

The 23-year-old has not been seen since a night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 24 September.

Defence Minister Mike Penning said "every available military kit, personnel and surveillance equipment" was on offer to police.

"They have requested it on several occasions," he said.

Mr Mckeague, from Dunfermline in Fife, was last seen walking alone in Bury St Edmunds at about 03:25 BST.

He walked into a dead-end area known as the "horseshoe" and was not seen again.

The mystery of missing Corrie Mckeague

Dan Jarvis, Labour MP for Barnsley Central, raised Mr Mckeague's disappearance during questions in Parliament to the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and his ministerial team.

Mr Penning replied: "I think the whole house would want to pledge their thoughts with Corrie's family and his love ones and the servicemen alongside him, for the RAF regiment which I had the honour of meeting at RAF Honington just after he went missing."

Corrie Mckeague, 23, has not been seen since a night out on 24 September

"We all want him to come home safely. I am sure the MOD will do everything we possibly can."

Mr Mckeague's family have raised £50,000 to pay for an intelligence services company to get involved in the search.

His uncle, Tony Wringe, said McKenzie Intelligence Services had uncovered details which challenged "previously-held assumptions" about his nephew's disappearance.

"We now have new areas where we realise we do or do not know something relevant," he said on Facebook.

Dan Jarvis asked Mike Penning for assurances that "all work is being done" to find Mr Mckeague

The team established the serviceman did meet up with RAF friends in Bury St Edmunds on the night he disappeared and went into bars with them, and went into Flex nightclub with at least one of his friends.

Telephone data has also been found to be "not entirely accurate", Mr Wringe said, and a "collection" plan - gathering further raw information and items of forensic interest - has now been formed.

"This is what I can share, there is more I cannot," he wrote on the Find Corrie Facebook page.