A search continued Sunday off the Massachusetts coast for an air ambulance carrying six people that disappeared during a flight from Bermuda to Boston, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The Federal Aviation Administration alerted the Coast Guard at 2 a.m. Saturday after losing contact with the Gulfstream G100, which was carrying four Canadians and two Bermudian nationals over the Atlantic Ocean. A "debris field" was later found off the coast of Nantucket, as stated by Coast Guard Northeast District Rear Adm. Matt Lake during a news conference on Sunday.
Coast Guard crews, along with the New York National Guard's Air Rescue Wing and Massachusetts authorities, have searched an area of 2,840 square miles (7,356 square kilometers) using fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, boats, and cutters. Lake noted, "This is a large and demanding search area."
The water depth around the debris field is reported to be 80 to 90 feet (about 24 to 27 meters). The Coast Guard is deploying sonar to search the seabed floor. Lake mentioned that the Coast Guard has been updating the next of kin of those aboard the Canadian-registered air ambulance jet regarding the search progress.
Weather conditions have not affected the search efforts, according to Coast Guard Capt. John McTamney, chief of response for the northeast district. McTamney stated, "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."
The plane had four crew members and two passengers when it departed Bermuda's L.F. Wade International Airport for the nighttime flight to Massachusetts, according to a statement from the Bermuda airport's operator, Skyport. Air traffic audio suggests that the plane may have been "coming in blind" as a storm approached shortly before it vanished.
The pilot reported electrical problems and declared an emergency as the jet neared the coast, according to air traffic control audio. Mary Schiavo, a former Inspector General of the Transportation Department, speculated that the plane may have lost its navigational instruments just as the storm moved across its path. Preliminary data from flight tracking site FlightRadar24 indicated that the plane descended sharply from its cruising altitude of around 24,000 feet to approximately 10,000 feet.
Schiavo commented, "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. It's very easy to get disoriented and not know if you're turning, climbing, descending, etc."
Transport Canada is closely monitoring the situation and collaborating with authorities on search and rescue efforts, as stated by the country's Minister of Transport Steven MacKinnon on the social platform X.