THE parents of a pilot whose plane crashed into a remote hillside said yesterday that their son had a passion for flying and had died doing a job he loved.

Tim Cook, 35, was on the return flight of the daily newspaper run from Inverness to Stornoway when radar contact was lost on Friday. The wreckage of the Cessna 406 aircraft was found on Saturday 2700ft-high in the mountains south east of Ullapool, Ross-shire.

Christopher and Pat Cook travelled to the Highlands at the weekend from their home in Whetstone, north London. Their other son Matthew, 38, is heading north today. However Mr Cook's fiancee, Helen, was too distraught to make the journey. The couple were due to wed in just over six months.

Mr and Mrs Cook addressed a news conference in Dingwall yesterday, paying tribute to the search effort by 100 members of mountain rescue teams and the emergency services. Teams from RAF Leuchars, RAF Kinloss, Dundonnell, Kintail and Torridon were involved, along with the coastguard helicopter from Stornoway and a Sea King from RAF Lossiemouth

Mr Cook, a retired accountant, said ''We are overwhelmed with the response from the police, air rescue service and the mountain rescue teams. We met Bill Amos (Dundonnell MRT) today and have asked him to pass on our very grateful thanks to all his men who found the site finally and recovered our son.

''The police have been absolutely wonderful in their co-ordination, and the liaison officer has been a great help to us.

''Obviously he (Tim) was a great guy,'' his father added. ''He adored flying, which was the one consolation for us that he was doing the job he loved. It was the only thing he wanted to do. He did apply to the RAF when he left university but he was too tall to be a pilot. He could only be a navigator, but didn't want to do that.

''He was quite gregarious and had a lot of friends. He travelled the world considerably, including Hong Kong and America. He did a degree in engineering, then went out to Hong Kong, saved all his money and then went to America to learn to fly in Texas and then in Florida.

''He came back, passed his Civil Aviation Authority exams and Highland (Airways) gave him his first job. He had got a job on easyJet, the next stage on the ladder. He was finishing with Highland this week.''

Mr Cook did not know where his son would have been based, but he would have had to leave Inverness. He added: ''He also was due to be married in May next year and we were all looking forward to that very much, but it is not to be. His fiancee Helen lives in England and she is very overcome by it all and clearly couldn't come up to Scotland''.

Linton Chilcott, chief pilot of Highland Airways, said of his colleague: ''He was totally competent, an extremely professional aviator. We could trust him completely with any of our aircraft . . . An extremely well respected and much-loved colleague, we all mourn his loss most grievously''.

A three-man team from the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) visited the crash site on Meall Feith na Slataich, a ridge of Seana Bhraigh. Philip Taylor, senior air accident investigator at the AAIB, said of the operation: ''It will be a painstaking process and could take six to nine months for a report''.

He said the wreckage would be taken back to Farnborough in Hampshire for investigation.