A snowmobiler armed with a camera helped search and rescue crews track down a missing plane and its three occupants on a glacier near Whistler, B.C. on Monday afternoon.

The single engine plane, with the three men onboard, had taken off from Pitt Meadows Airport on Sunday morning and was bound for Pemberton, a community just north of Whistler.

A search was launched on Sunday afternoon after the plane failed to return to Pitt Meadows.

"It was complicated by the fact they didn't have the [emergency] beacon on board. Had they had one of those, we would have been there immediately," Captain Gregory Clarke with the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, told CTV Vancouver.

The crew had also failed to file a flight plan, he added.

Clarke says crews were tipped off to the location after a snowmobiler sent a photo of the plane to a friend, asking if it was an old crash site.

The friend then alerted search and rescue crews who flew to the glacier.

The three men were found a short distance away from the plane, having left a note behind telling anyone who found it that they were walking down to a nearby valley in a bid to find shelter.

All the passengers are said to be unharmed and only suffered mild dehydration after spending a night outdoors.

"This time it was a very positive outcome," said Clarke.

The Transportation Safety Board will investigate what led to the emergency landing.