Search continues for missing Bermuda to Boston flight as crews plan to comb seabed

A search continued on Sunday off the Massachusetts coast for an air ambulance carrying six people that disappeared during a flight from Bermuda to Boston as authorities planned to comb the seabed, the US Coast Guard said.

The Federal Aviation Administration contacted the coastguard at 2am on Saturday saying it had lost contact with the Gulfstream G100 carrying four Canadians and two Bermudian nationals over the Atlantic Ocean. Searchers later on Saturday found a “debris field” off the coast of Nantucket, Coast Guard Northeast District Rear Admiral Matt Lake said at a news conference on Sunday.

Coastguard crews along with the New York National Guard’s Air Rescue Wing and Massachusetts authorities have since searched an area encompassing 7,356 sq km (2,840 square miles) using fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, boats and cutters.

“This is a large and demanding search area,” Lake said.

The depth of the water around the debris field was about 24 to 27 metres (80ft to 90ft). The coastguard was in the process of deploying sonar to search the seabed, he said.

The coastguard has been updating the next of kin of those aboard the Canadian-registered air ambulance with the progress of the search, Lake said.

Weather has not been a factor in the search efforts, said coastguard Captain John McTamney, chief of response for the northeast district.

“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,” McTamney said.

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.

Air traffic audio indicates that 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 plane 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.

That makes Mary Schiavo, who is a former Inspector General of the Transportation Department, think the plane may have lost its navigational instruments just as a storm moved across its path on radar. The plane also descended sharply from its cruising altitude of around 24,000ft to around 10,000ft, according to preliminary data from flight tracking site FlightRadar24.

“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,” said Schiavo, who is an aviation lawyer. “It’s very easy to get disoriented and not know if you’re turning, climbing, descending, etc.”

Transport Canada was closely monitoring and working with authorities on search and rescue efforts, the country’s Minister of Transport Steven MacKinnon said on social media.