Air Ambulance Lost After Departing Bermuda
The U.S. Coast Guard announced on Saturday that a medical evacuation aircraft went missing during a flight from Bermuda to Boston after losing contact with the plane, which was carrying six people, according to officials.
The Coast Guard said it had dispatched air and sea teams to join the search for the Gulfstream G100 aircraft off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
The Coast Guard stated that the Federal Aviation Administration reported losing contact with the plane early Saturday morning.
According to air traffic control audio published on the website LiveATC.net, the pilot’s voice was not clearly audible, but the air traffic controller later confirmed that the pilot declared an emergency moments before contact was lost.
The Canadian-registered medical evacuation aircraft carried four crew members and two passengers when it departed from L.F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda overnight en route to Massachusetts, according to a statement from Bermuda’s airport operator, SkyPort.
According to flight data, the aircraft was flying at an altitude of 7,300 meters for most of the journey, before descending to approximately 4,000 meters within about two minutes, just before air traffic controllers lost contact with it.
Local television station Boston 25 broadcast audio from Boston Logan International Airport in which an air traffic controller can be heard asking the pilot, “Did you say you were going to enter without seeing? Is that what you said?” before contact with the aircraft was lost.
Contact with the aircraft, operated by the Canadian company Latitude Air Ambulance, was lost around 1:30 a.m. local time, according to company spokesperson Clarence Tougritz, who spoke to the Associated Press.
Tougritz said, “There were two pilots, two medical crew members, and a patient accompanied by a family member on board,” adding that he had no further information regarding rescue efforts.
In this regard, the National Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering information about the incident on Saturday morning but had no further updates to report at this time.
For his part, Canadian Minister of Transport Steven MacKinnon confirmed on the X platform that his ministry is closely monitoring developments in the search for the aircraft and coordinating with authorities on search and rescue efforts.
