Corrie Mckeague: Credible leads needed in RAF airman probe - police

Corrie Mckeague went missing after being asked to leave a nightclub in September 2016

Leads that are "new, realistic and credible" are needed for an investigation to be reopened into the disappearance of an RAF airman five years ago, police say.

Corrie Mckeague was 23 years old when he vanished from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 24 September 2016.

Police believe he died after climbing into a waste bin after a night out.

On the fifth anniversary, Suffolk Police said the active inquiry into his disappearance was closed.

Mr Mckeague's body has never been found.

The force said its thoughts were with his family and friends, but the case had not progressed.

A statement said: "Unless any new, realistic and credible information becomes available then the investigation is complete.

"There is no information available at this time that changes the status of the investigation."

Mr Mckeague was last seen on CCTV after leaving a nightclub

Mr Mckeague, from Dunfermline in Fife, was a gunner based at RAF Honington, near Bury St Edmunds, when he went missing.

An inquest hearing - opened and adjourned in November - heard from a police officer who said the serviceman was "very drunk" when he was asked to leave the Flex nightclub.

His last confirmed sighting was at 03:25 BST, when CCTV cameras recorded him walking into an area known as the "horseshoe" behind Greggs and Superdrug, where industrial waste bins were stored.

A landfill site at Milton near Cambridge was extensively searched as part of the investigation

A Biffa refuse lorry drove into the area less than an hour after the last sighting of Mr Mckeague. The lorry's load weighed 116kg, 70 to 80kg more than average, police said.

The airman's mobile phone mapped the same route as the bin lorry to Barton Mills, about 12 miles (19km) north-west of Bury.

As part of the inquiry, which cost more than £2m, police trawled a landfill site at Milton, near Cambridge.

A review of the police search for Mr Mckeague, carried out in 2017 by police from the East Midlands, concluded officers carried out "exemplary" work despite having "limited resources".

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