Search operation for crashed medical plane off US east coast underway

A search operation is underway off the US east coast for a small plane with six people on board. According to the US Coast Guard, emergency services are searching for the aircraft from both the air and the water.

Contact with the machine was lost early Saturday morning local time. According to Nantucket Airport, the plane had declared an emergency shortly before contact was lost. What exactly happened is still unclear, according to a statement from the airport.

According to the flight service Flightradar24, the Gulfstream G100 with the registration C-GRJP took off from Bermuda at 12:41 a.m. She was on her way to Boston, Massachusetts.

Noticeable descent

According to a report in the New York Times, the plane initially flew at a constant altitude of around 24,000 feet (approx. seven kilometers) after takeoff. At about 1:05 a.m. it began to lose several thousand feet of altitude.

Aviation experts described the recorded descent as unusual. The former inspector general of the US Department of Transportation and aviation lawyer Mary Schiavo told the New York Times that problems apparently occurred shortly before the descent.

The crew had previously adjusted the speed and thus possibly reacted to a disruption.

Bermuda is a British overseas territory with around 65,000 inhabitants and is located about 1,250 kilometers from Boston.

Several accidents involving medical aircraft

The aircraft is registered to Latitude Air Ambulance. The company specializes in medical transport and is based in Hamilton, Canada. There was initially no information available about the condition of the occupants.

According to the New York Times, there have been several serious accidents involving medical aircraft in the United States in recent years. In May, a plane crashed during a short flight in New Mexico, killing four people.

In December, six people died when a Mexican Navy plane crashed into Galveston Bay, Texas. In addition, a medical plane crashed near a shopping center in Philadelphia in January 2025. All six people on board and one person on the ground died.