Plane Vanishes With 6 On Board

A Gulfstream G100 vanished off the Massachusetts coast early Saturday while flying a medical transport from Bermuda to Boston, with six people aboard.

The jet belongs to Latitude Air Ambulance. It left L.F. Wade International Airport late Friday night, bound for Logan International Airport on a medevac run expected to last about two hours.

Skyport, the Bermuda airport operator, said the aircraft departed at about 12:41 a.m. Saturday with six souls on board: four crew members and two passengers. Other accounts describe the group as two Canadian pilots, two medical workers, one patient and a companion. No names have been released.

Contact with air traffic control was lost off Nantucket around 1 a.m. The FAA issued a search-and-rescue alert at about 1:20 a.m.

Tracking data showed the jet dropping from 24,000 feet to 11,000 feet in roughly three minutes.

The Coast Guard opened a search with an HC-130 Hercules from Elizabeth City, an MH-60 Jayhawk from Cape Cod, a 47-foot lifeboat from Station Brant Point and the cutter William Sparling. Crews worked the water through the night.

A debris field was later found off Nantucket and tied to the missing aircraft.

See the Photos as Kristi Noem Divorces Husband

The search for survivors continued into Saturday evening.

No one had been recovered.

Massport said the plane never arrived at Logan and added, “Our thoughts are with those on board and their loved ones as the search continues.”

Bermuda Premier David Burt said his thoughts were with the six people and their families, and that “we are praying that everyone will be found safe.”

Former U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo described the loss as “a dire one-two punch: a critical safety in-flight problem, followed almost immediately by a perilous weather event and an 11,000-foot plunge.”

The NTSB said it was gathering information and declined further comment.

Latitude Air Ambulance confirmed the flight was a medevac and offered no additional details. The Coast Guard planned a news conference for Sunday morning.