Zagreb - Croatian rescuers on Tuesday discovered the wreckage of a small passenger aircraft which disappeared in rugged terrain six days earlier.

The Cessna aircraft, thought to have had four instructors from a pilot school onboard, was flying from Zagreb to Zadar, some 220 kilometres south on the Adriatic Coast.

The people from the plane have not yet been found, the head of the Alpine rescue service, Zeljko Prizmic, told national television.

The search around the 1,750-metre Vaganski peak of the Velebit mountain range, in southwestern Croatia, has been hampered by poor weather and up to three metres of freshly deposited snow.

The wreckage was found on the northern slope of the mountain, some 60 kilometres from Zadar.(dpa)