On Sunday, rescuers kept looking off the Massachusetts coast for a Gulfstream G100 air ambulance carrying six people that vanished while flying from Bermuda to Boston. The U.S. Coast Guard said it lost contact with the Canadian-registered jet over the Atlantic Ocean at 2 a.m. Saturday.
Searchers later found a “debris field” off the coast of Nantucket. The plane carried four Canadians and two Bermudian nationals. Coast Guard Northeast District Rear Adm. Matt Lake said at a news conference Sunday that the search area now encompasses 2,840 square miles (7,356 square kilometers).
The Debris Field
The water surrounding the debris field measured between 80 and 90 feet (roughly 24 to 27 meters) deep. A joint operation involving Coast Guard crews, the New York National Guard’s Air Rescue Wing and Massachusetts authorities carried out the search. Fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, boats and cutters were all used to scour the location.
What the Pilot Reported
Air traffic audio indicates the plane may have been “coming in blind” when a storm loomed ahead shortly before it vanished. The pilot reported electrical problems and declared an emergency as the jet approached the coast, according to air traffic control audio posted by LiveATC.net.
“Roger, you said you’re coming in blind. Is that what you said?” a controller can be heard asking the pilot.
The Descent
FlightRadar24’s preliminary numbers reveal the aircraft plunged steeply from a cruising height of roughly 24,000 feet down to about 10,000 feet.
Next of Kin Updates
Lake said the Coast Guard has kept the next of kin of those aboard the air ambulance jet informed about the progress of the search.
Sonar Deployment
Lake explained that the Coast Guard was moving forward with the deployment of sonar equipment for searching the bottom of the lake.
The Flight From Bermuda
The plane had four crew members and two passengers aboard 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.
Schiavo’s Analysis
An aviation lawyer and a former Inspector General of the Transportation Department named Mary Schiavo believes the aircraft could have lost its navigational equipment at the exact moment a storm crossed its path on radar.
“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,” Schiavo said. “It’s very easy to get disoriented and not know if you’re turning, climbing, descending, etc.”
Canadian Monitoring
The Minister of Transport, Steven MacKinnon, spoke on X about search and rescue operations, saying that Transport Canada was closely following developments while cooperating with authorities.
“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.”
Crews are searching for a missing person, and the debris field lies offshore. The water below it grows deep enough that crews are now moving toward the seabed.
A medical flight carrying six passengers disappeared while traveling from Bermuda to Boston, and investigators believe they know where the aircraft came down. A debris field has formed over the Atlantic, marking the spot where the plane went down. The Coast Guard is using sonar equipment to scan the ocean floor below.搜救工作将继续进行，直到机组人员确信机上无人生还。
Source material: “Search ongoing for missing medical flight from Bermuda to Boston as crews plan to scour ocean floor,” ABC7 Chicago.
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