Search Suspended for 6 on Missing Medical Flight from Bermuda to Boston
Authorities have called off the extensive search for an air ambulance carrying four Canadians and two Bermudians that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean.
Authorities suspended the search off the Massachusetts coast Sunday for six people on an air ambulance that vanished during a flight from Bermuda to Boston. The U.S. Coast Guard reported that searchers had covered more than 4,400 miles over 66 hours.
Rear Adm. Matthew Lake, commander of the Coast Guard's northeast district, stated that suspending a search is a difficult decision. "We express our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones affected by the tragedy and our gratitude for our partner agencies who helped support search efforts," Lake said in a statement.
The Federal Aviation Administration alerted the Coast Guard early Saturday that it had lost contact with the Gulfstream G100 over the Atlantic Ocean. Searchers later found a "debris field" off the coast of Nantucket, Lake announced at a news conference Sunday.
Crews from the Coast Guard, the New York National Guard's Air Rescue Wing, and Massachusetts authorities utilized fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, boats, and cutters in their search of a wide area. The water depth where the debris was found ranged from 80 to 90 feet.
The Canadian-registered air ambulance jet was carrying four crew members and two passengers when it departed Bermuda's L.F. Wade International Airport for the nighttime flight to Massachusetts, according to Bermuda Skyport, the airport's operator.
Air traffic audio suggests the plane may have been flying without navigation capabilities as a storm approached just before its disappearance. The pilot reported electrical problems and declared an emergency as the jet neared the coast, according to audio from LiveATC.net.
A former Inspector General of the Transportation Department, Mary Schiavo, who is also an aviation attorney, suggested the plane might have lost its navigational instruments as a storm moved into its path. Preliminary flight tracking data from FlightRadar24 indicated the plane descended sharply from its cruising altitude of approximately 24,000 feet to about 10,000 feet. "Something bad happened with this big drop, and they flew into this big storm. It’s a terrible place to have a loss of your instruments and be flying blind," Schiavo said. "It’s very easy to get disoriented and not know if you’re turning, climbing, descending, etc."