Search teams have found a debris field off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, from an air ambulance carrying six people that went missing over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday while flying from Bermuda to Boston, the US Coast Guard said.
Four Canadian nationals and two Bermudian nationals were aboard the aircraft. Their next of kin have been notified as search operations continue, the Coast Guard said in a statement. One of its cutters will remain in the area overnight and continue searching into Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) informed the Coast Guard that the Gulfstream G100 lost contact early Saturday morning, according to the statement.
Air traffic control recordings suggest the aircraft may have been approaching the coast without proper visibility or navigation assistance as a storm moved into its path shortly before it disappeared.
The pilot reported electrical problems and declared an emergency as the jet approached the Massachusetts coast, according to audio recordings posted on LiveATC.net. A controller was heard asking the pilot to confirm whether the aircraft was approaching “blind”.
Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the US Department of Transportation and an aviation attorney, said the aircraft may have lost its navigational instruments as a storm moved across its path.
Preliminary data from flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 showed that the plane descended sharply from its cruising altitude of around 24,000 feet to approximately 10,000 feet.
Schiavo said the sudden loss of altitude, combined with the storm and possible instrument failure, could have left the crew disoriented.
The Canadian-registered medical jet had four crew members and two passengers aboard when it departed L.F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda for the overnight flight to Massachusetts, the airport's operator, Skyport, said in a statement.
Canadian Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said authorities were closely monitoring the situation and working with other agencies on search and rescue efforts.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering information about the incident but did not immediately confirm whether it would launch an investigation.