Authorities continued searching Sunday off the Massachusetts coast for an air ambulance carrying six people that disappeared while flying from Bermuda to Boston. The U.S. Coast Guard said crews planned to survey the ocean floor as part of the effort.
The Federal Aviation Administration notified the Coast Guard at about 2 a.m. Saturday that it had lost contact with the Canadian-registered Gulfstream G100. The aircraft was carrying four Canadians and two Bermudian nationals over the Atlantic. Later Saturday, search teams located a “debris field” off Nantucket, Coast Guard Northeast District Rear Adm. Matt Lake said at a news conference Sunday.
Coast Guard units, the New York National Guard’s Air Rescue Wing and Massachusetts agencies have searched roughly 2,840 square miles (7,356 square kilometers). The operation has involved fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, boats and cutters.
“This is a large and demanding search area,” Lake said.
The water near the debris field is between 80 and 90 feet deep, or approximately 24 to 27 meters. Coast Guard crews were working to deploy sonar to examine the seabed, Lake said.
Lake said the Coast Guard had been providing the families of those aboard the air ambulance with updates on the search.
Weather conditions have not hindered the operation, said Coast Guard Capt. John McTamney, the northeast district’s chief of response.
“We’ll continue to search and saturate the area until we’re at the point where we are confident that if there were any survivors remaining on the surface of the water, we would have found them,” McTamney said.
According to a statement from Skyport, the operator of Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport, the plane had four crew members and two passengers when it left the airport for the overnight flight to Massachusetts.
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Audio from air traffic control suggests the aircraft may have been “coming in blind” as a storm moved into its path shortly before contact was lost.
The pilot reported electrical issues and declared an emergency as the jet neared the Massachusetts coast, according to air traffic control audio posted by LiveATC.net. “Roger, you said you’re coming in blind. Is that what you said?” a controller asked.
Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the Transportation Department, said the aircraft may have lost its navigation instruments as a storm crossed its radar path. Preliminary data from FlightRadar24 showed the plane dropping sharply from a cruising altitude of about 24,000 feet to roughly 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,” said Schiavo, an aviation attorney. “It’s very easy to get disoriented and not know if you’re turning, climbing, descending, etc.”
Transport Canada was closely tracking the situation and coordinating with authorities involved in the search and rescue operation, Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said on X.
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AP Transportation Writer Josh Funk and Associated Press reporter Laura Turbay of Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this report. Turbay is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative, a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to cover underreported issues.
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