Search teams have found the wreckage of a Cessna aircraft missing for two days, with the pilot and his passenger dead in a forest in the Philippines.

The two-seater aircraft with registration number RP-C8958 departed Laoag International Airport in Ilocos province on a training flight at 12:16 pm on August 1. It was scheduled to land at 3:16 pm at the Tuguegarao Airport in Cagayan province around 300 kilometres away but never arrived.

Following two days of search operations hampered by poor weather, officials discovered the missing plane lying in a wooded area between the towns of Luna and San Mariano Pudtol some 50 kilometres away from its intended destination on August 3 afternoon.

Rescue crew said the pilot Captain Edzel John Lumbao Tabuzo, and his passenger, an Indian student pilot Anshum Rajkumar Konde, were dead at the scene. Their bodies were retrieved and taken to the Amma Jadsac District Hospital in Apayao town for post-mortem examinations.

The search team found the plane's black box and turned it over to authorities for investigation.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines Aircraft Accident Investigation and Inquiry Board said it has launched a probe into the cause of the crash.