Bermuda

Debris found off Nantucket island after the air ambulance disappeared while flying from Bermuda to Boston.

The United States coastguard has suspended its search for six people on board a medical transport jet that crashed while flying from Bermuda to Boston.

“Suspending a search is not an easy decision,” Rear Admiral Matthew Lake, commander of the ⁠coastguard’s Northeast District, said in a statement on Sunday.

The search was called off after teams spent about 66 hours covering 4,445 miles (7,150km) by air and sea and confirmed that debris found off the shore of Massachusetts’s Nantucket Island came from the aircraft.

The Gulfstream G100 carried two pilots, two medical staff, a patient and a relative, Clarence Togeretz, director of flight operations at Canada-based Latitude Air Ambulance, told Canada’s public broadcaster CBC.

The four crew members were Canadian, and the two passengers were Bermudian, according to authorities.

In a statement on Sunday, Latitude Air Ambulance said, “Given the information shared by authorities and the conclusion of ⁠the search-and-rescue phase, we must now face the heartbreaking reality that the four members of our Latitude team, our patient and the patient’s family escort, who were ⁠aboard Heartbeat 104, are presumed to have died.”

Attention has turned to what happened in the jet’s final minutes, when flight-tracking data showed a steep descent and air traffic controllers struggled to re-establish contact.

Authorities have not determined what caused the aircraft to come down.

The aircraft had flown to Bermuda to collect the patient and was heading to Boston Logan International airport.

The US Federal Aviation Administration alerted the coastguard at about 2am on Saturday (06:00 GMT) after contact with the jet was lost.

Lake said at a Sunday news conference that the water around the debris was about 80 to 90 feet (24-27 metres) deep.

He offered condolences to the families of those on board and thanked the agencies involved in the operation.

Latitude Air Ambulance specialises in medical evacuation and repatriation flights, carrying patients home from other countries.

The company says its missions are normally staffed by two pilots and medical personnel.

The US coastguard says it has dispatched air and surface crews to search for the plane near Nantucket.

An air ambulance has gone missing while carrying six people on a flight from Bermuda to Boston.

The US Federal Aviation Administration told the coastguard early on Saturday that it had lost contact with the plane, a Gulfstream jet, ⁠a coastguard spokesperson told the Reuters news agency by email.

The ⁠coastguard said it dispatched air and surface crews to search for the plane near Nantucket, an island community south of mainland Massachusetts.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering information about the situation on Saturday morning but had no further update to share.

The Canadian-registered air ambulance jet had four crew members and two passengers on board when it departed Bermuda’s LF Wade International airport overnight for the flight to Massachusetts, according to a statement from the Bermuda airport’s operator, Skyport.

Canada’s Minister of Transport Steven MacKinnon said in a social media post that four Canadians were on the plane.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and are working with the relevant authorities as search and rescue ‌efforts continue,” MacKinnon wrote.

The aircraft, registered to Latitude Air Ambulance, departed Bermuda at 12:41am local time (03:41 GMT), according to data from flight tracking website FlightAware.

The plane was flying at 24,000 feet (7,300 metres) for much of the flight before descending 13,000ft (3,960 metres) in about two minutes shortly before flight controllers lost contact, data showed.

Last communication

Air traffic control audio posted by LiveATC.net offered a glimpse of the flight’s final communications before it went missing.

“Roger, you said you’re coming in blind. Is that what you said?” a controller can be heard asking the pilot.

The pilot’s transmission could not be heard in the recording. The controller later confirmed the pilot was declaring an emergency just before losing contact with the plane.

The Bermuda government is in contact with US ‌authorities and families of the passengers, Bermuda Premier David Burt wrote in a statement posted on Instagram.

“We are praying that all six people will ‌be ‌found safe,” he wrote.

Latitude Air Ambulance is based in Ontario, Canada, and provides medical evacuation services. The company ⁠did not immediately respond to a request for comment.