Coast Guard Suspends Search for Six Aboard Air Ambulance Lost Off Nantucket

BOSTON, Oct. 4 (TodayViralUSA) — The U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday evening suspended its search for six people who were aboard a medical transport jet that vanished early Saturday on a flight from Bermuda to Boston, ending roughly 66 hours of operations in the waters south of Nantucket, Massachusetts.

“Suspending a search is not an easy decision,” Rear Adm. Matthew Lake, commander of the Coast Guard’s Northeast District, said in a statement reported by NBC 10 News. He extended condolences to the families and thanked the partner agencies that joined the effort.

The aircraft, a Canadian-registered Gulfstream G100 with tail number C-GRJP, was carrying four Canadian nationals and two Bermudian nationals, the Coast Guard said. Skyport, the operator of Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport, said four crew members and two passengers were on board for the overnight flight. Local media identified the jet’s owner as Latitude Air Ambulance, an Ontario-based company that transfers patients between health care facilities.

Debris field located

The Federal Aviation Administration alerted the Coast Guard at about 2 a.m. Saturday that it had lost contact with the jet. Searchers later found a debris field about 20 miles off Nantucket that officials confirmed was linked to the aircraft. The flight data recorder was not among the wreckage recovered, officials said.

Flight-tracking data cited by Canada’s National Post show the plane left Bermuda at 11:41 p.m. EDT on Friday. Shortly after 1 a.m., as it approached the U.S. coastline, its altitude dropped from about 24,000 feet to roughly 11,000 feet in the span of two minutes.

Coast Guard crews worked alongside the New York National Guard’s air rescue wing and Massachusetts authorities, deploying fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, small boats and cutters. By Sunday morning they had covered about 2,840 square miles, according to the Associated Press, and the total neared 3,000 square miles by the time the search was halted. Water around the debris site is 80 to 90 feet deep, and officials had been arranging sonar-equipped vessels to examine the seabed.

Emergency declared before contact was lost

Air traffic control audio posted by LiveATC.net indicates the pilot reported electrical problems and declared an emergency as the jet neared the coast, the AP reported. On the recording, a controller asks the pilot to confirm that the crew was “coming in blind.” A storm was moving across the plane’s path on radar at about the same time.

Mary Schiavo, an aviation attorney and former inspector general of the U.S. Transportation Department, told the AP that losing instruments while flying into a storm can quickly leave pilots disoriented. Authorities have said it is too early to determine a cause.

Canadian Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said Transport Canada was closely monitoring the case and coordinating with search authorities. Bermuda Premier David Burt said on social media that his thoughts were with those aboard and their families.

Earlier on Sunday, Capt. John McTamney, the district’s chief of response, said crews would keep saturating the area until they were confident that any survivors on the surface would have been found, adding that weather had not been a factor. The Coast Guard said relatives of those on board had been kept informed throughout the operation.