Air ambulance lost contact after plummeting en route from Bermuda
US authorities are searching for six people after a medical plane bound for Boston, Massachusetts, went missing early Saturday morning off the coast of Nantucket. The Federal Aviation Administration told the BBC it lost contact with the Gulfstream G-100 jet and put out a search and rescue notice just after 1:00 local time (6:00 GMT).
An air and water search is under way off the coast of Nantucket, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, according to the US Coast Guard’s Northeast District.
The plane departed Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport at 23:40 local time and was slated to land at Boston’s Logan International at 1:30 EDT (6:30 GMT), according to flight data from FlightAware.
The tail number released by the Coast Guard showed the aircraft belonged to Latitude Air Ambulances, a company that provides international medical flights for patients returning home.
FlightAware’s tracker shows the plane significantly dropped in altitude before its communications went dark, plummeting from around 7,300 meters (24,000 feet) to 3,300 meters (11,000 feet).