Medical plane carrying 6 people goes missing off Massachusetts coast
A search is underway off Nantucket after a medical plane carrying six people disappeared en route to Boston. The aircraft dropped sharply in altitude before contact was lost.
US rescue authorities launched an air and water search early Saturday morning after a medical plane carrying six people vanished near Nantucket, an island off the Massachusetts coast. The Federal Aviation Administration told the BBC it lost contact with a Gulfstream G-100 aircraft and issued a search-and-rescue alert shortly after 1:00 local time (6:00 GMT).
According to the US Coast Guard's Northeast District, both aerial and maritime search efforts are ongoing. Flight-tracking data from FlightAware shows the plane left Bermuda's L.F. Wade International Airport at 23:40 local time and was due to land at Boston's Logan International Airport at 1:30 EDT (6:30 GMT).
The tail number released by the Coast Guard identified the aircraft as belonging to Latitude Air Ambulances, a company that operates international medical flights for patients traveling home. The company's director of flight operations, Clarence Togeretz, told CBC News that two pilots and two medical staff members, all Canadian, were aboard. The crew had flown to Bermuda to pick up a patient and a relative, neither of whom were Canadian.
FlightAware tracking showed the plane dropping sharply in altitude before communications ceased — from roughly 7,300 metres (24,000ft) to 3,300 metres (11,000ft). Radio transmissions cited by the Boston Globe, sourced from LiveATC.net, show confusion between air traffic control and the pilot over whether an emergency was being declared, with the pilot's response largely inaudible due to a weak signal. Air traffic control later confirmed the pilot had in fact declared an emergency.
A local fire dispatcher instructed emergency crews shortly after 1:00 EDT to prepare for a plane reporting an "electrical issue," later adding that the aircraft had lost both radio and radar contact.
