NEW YORK, Oct. 5 — The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search at sunset Sunday for the six people aboard a medical jet that crashed off Nantucket Island, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, the agency said in a statement.
After 66 hours of combing the seas, suspending the search “is not an easy decision,” read the statement, citing Matthew Lake, commander of the Coast Guard’s Northeast District.
“We express our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones affected by the tragedy,” said Lake.
The medical jet, registered to Canadian air medical transport provider Latitude Air Ambulance, was en route from Bermuda to Boston, scheduled to land at 1:30 a.m. local time (0530 GMT). But it lost contact with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration shortly after 1 a.m., the agency told the BBC.
“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,” Latitude Air Ambulance said in a statement on Sunday.
(Namibia Daily News/Xinhua)
