The proximity of Saturday's accident to the facility, which was busy despite the appalling weather, prompted the leader of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team, Willie Anderson, to say: "In aviation terms it was very close. If the plane had hit the Ptarmigan complex ... well, it does not bear thinking about, but it was not far away.

"It was lucky nobody on the ground was injured."

A major investigation has been launched into the cause of the crash amid mystery over why the pilot, a millionaire businessman from Worcestershire, had chosen to fly through the terrible weather despite days of warnings.

Yesterday (Tuesday), relatives of 45-year-old Gary Key flew north to identify his body in a mortuary in Inverness.

He was an experienced pilot, who included a plane-hire company among his many business interests, but filed a flight plan for Wick Airport as part of a relay around the north Atlantic to reach North America in his Piper Saratoga single-engined plane.

He left Wolverhampton Business Airport early on Saturday and stopped in at Carlisle Airport to refuel before setting off for Wick at 9.15am.

Just over an hour later he was above the Cairngorms and starting to notice the effects of the bitterly cold weather and high winds on his light single-seater aircraft.

At around 10.40pm he was still in contact with air traffic controllers at Dyce, near Aberdeen, and with other aircraft in the area, but he told them the wings of his plane were starting to ice up, and requested permission to divert to Inverness Airport.

Soon after this he changed his mind and asked to be allowed to land at Dyce, and was heading south when he was spotted passing low over the Ptarmigan restaurant.

The plane disappeared off the radar of air traffic control at 10.58am, and an immediate search was launched for the plane in atrocious conditions.

Search and rescue helicopters from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Boulmer were joined by more than 100 searchers from six mountain rescue teams, but the operation was called off on Saturday night with no sign of the small white aircraft or Mr Key.

Several witnesses reported hearing a loud bang in the area just after the plane passed over the Ptarmigan, although the searchers spread over an area of 50 square miles in their search for the plane.

"Conditions up there were absolutely terrible," said Mr Anderson.

"Visibility was so low that we knew we were going to have to virtually step on some wreckage to find the plane."

That is almost exactly what happened on Sunday when the search resumed and a member of the team stumbled across the plane at a spot known as Marquis Well, just 250 metres directly south of the Ptarmigan tow ski lift, one kilometre from the restaurant.

The plane came down close to the mountain's piste where people were skiing and snowboarding despite the blizzard.

Bob Kinnaird, Chief Executive of CairnGorm Mountain, said: "The crash site is outwith the ski patrol boundary of the Cairngorm ski area but only by a couple of hundred metres.

"We have been supporting the rescue services as best we can and have been asked to close the Ptarmigan tow whilst the investigation is ongoing.

"We had a few hundred skiers on Saturday when classic Cairngorm blizzards conditions were prevailing; the cloud base was very low."

"The area is frequented occasionally by ski mountaineers and walkers in the winter, but more so in the summer as a footpath goes through the Marquis Well area to the summit of Cairn Gorm."

One member of the mountain rescue team said witnesses had reported hearing the plane in trouble shortly before everything went quiet.

"He seemed to be circling overhead in the snow, climbing suddenly and then doing the same again," the rescuer said.

When the wreckage was found near the summit, Mr Key's body was still inside, and this was removed to be examined at a mortuary in Inverness.

Then a team from the Air Accident Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport flew north to begin their analysis of the reason for the accident, while police officers in several forces took on the job of informing the pilot's family and looking at why he had decided to fly in such atrocious weather.

Mr Key lived in Stourport, Worcestershire, with his partner, Katrina Moran, and was said to have been a very experienced pilot.

Among his many companies were Olympia Homes and Gary Key Aircraft Leasing.

A friend said yesterday: "Gary was a good pilot and a good man. It is a terrible tragedy."

A newspaper based near Mr Key's home in Worcester reported yesterday that his aircraft had also been involved in another incident in June, 2005, at Wolverhampton Airport after the pilot landed without lowering his landing gear.

A report by the Air Accident Investigation Branch noted: "The pilot stated that he had forgotten to lower the undercarriage.

"He had just returned from the US, where he had flown some 40 hours in fixed-undercarriage PA-28s. The pilot considered that this recent flying had contributed to his error."

RAF spokesman Michael Mulford said Saturday's weather conditions would have been worse for a small plane because the added weight of ice which formed on its wings would be greater than that for a larger aircraft.

"Once a light aircraft starts to ice up it becomes heavier and it has no method of getting the ice off the wings," he explained.

"The shape of your wings changes, and all the power available from your engine doesn't help because the plane will just keep getting heavier and heavier.

"The weather map for the North of Scotland had been shown as white for several days, so an experienced pilot should have known there was a risk of this sort of incident and made their journey at a better time."

He added: "The conditions the search teams encountered up there were the worst they had seen for several years; temperatures of –20, low visibility and high winds.

"It was not a place anyone wanted to be, but these guys deserve our respect and thanks for being committed to go out whatever the weather when they are needed."

g.burke@sbherald.co.uk

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