Medical plane with 6 on board missing off Massachusetts coast

A man carries a surfboard on a beach
The search for the plane is being conducted near Nantucket, an island off the coast of the US state of Massachusetts.

US authorities are searching for six people after a medical plane bound for Boston, Massachusetts went missing early Saturday morning.

The Federal Aviation Administration told the BBC that it lost contact with the Gulfstream G‑100 plane and put out a search and rescue notice just after 1:00 local time (6:00 GMT).

An air and water search is underway off the coast of Nantucket, a Massachusetts island, according to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Northeast District.

The plane departed from Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport at 23:40 local time, according to flight data from FlightAware, and was slated to land at Boston’s Logan International at 1:30 EDT (6:30 GMT).

According to the tail number released by the Coast Guard, the plane belonged to Latitude Air Ambulances, a company that provides international medical flights for patients returning home.

FlightAware’s tracker shows the aircraft significantly dropped in altitude before its communications went dark, plummeting from around 7,300 m (24,000 ft) to 3,300 m (11,000 ft).

Source: BBC News – S. Venkatraman