Coast Guard suspends the search for six people on a Bermuda–Boston medical flight

The US Coast Guard on Sunday suspended the search for six people aboard a medical flight that disappeared over the Atlantic on the way from Bermuda to Boston. The Canadian-registered Gulfstream G100 had four crew and two passengers. Searchers covered more than 4,400 square miles in 66 hours. A debris field was found off Nantucket.

The Federal Aviation Administration told the Coast Guard at about 2 a.m. Saturday that it had lost contact with the jet. The aircraft had left L.F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda for a night flight to Massachusetts, Skyport, the airport operator, said. Four of those on board were Canadian. Two were Bermudian. The Bermuda Police Service on Monday named the two Bermudians as Marilyn Lavonne Bean, 66, and her son, Sergio Wayne Lottimore, 41. Police did not say why they were on the flight.

What the tapes show before the drop

Air traffic audio posted from the flight indicates the crew reported electrical problems and declared an emergency as the jet neared the coast. A controller asked whether the aircraft was coming in blind. There was no further response. Tracking data showed the jet dropping sharply from about 24,000 feet. A storm lay ahead of the track.

The Coast Guard said a cutter would keep searching overnight into Sunday, then suspended the active search after the 66-hour effort. A debris field off Nantucket is the physical find. The service has not said the field has been recovered piece by piece, or that remains have been identified. Suspension means the probability of finding survivors has fallen to the point at which the service stops the large search. It does not close the investigation into why the aircraft came down.

An air ambulance, not a scheduled airliner

The jet was a medical flight, an air ambulance on a Canadian registration, not a Bermuda commercial service. Four crew for two passengers is a normal shape for that work: pilots and medical staff. The route, Bermuda to Boston, is a standard medical transfer into the New England hospital system. Night, weather on the approach, and an electrical failure reported on the tape are the three conditions the public record now holds.

The Coast Guard’s arithmetic is the other hard fact. More than 4,400 square miles in 66 hours is a large box for six people in open ocean. The debris field concentrates the next search, if there is one, on a patch off Nantucket rather than on the whole route from Bermuda. Sonar on the seabed was the tool local broadcasters said crews were turning to once the surface search had run its time. The Coast Guard statement that suspended the search is the official end of the rescue phase.

Names, and what is still open

Bean and Lottimore are the two passengers the Bermuda police have named. The four Canadian crew had not been named in the copy available on Monday night. Next of kin were notified while the search was still active, the Coast Guard said. Cause is not established. A debris field and a radio call about electrical trouble are leads. They are not a finding on whether the electrical fault, the weather, or something else put the aircraft into the water.

For the families, Sunday’s decision is the end of the hope that a boat or a helicopter would find someone alive. For investigators in Canada, Bermuda and the United States, the recording, the track from 24,000 feet, and whatever can be lifted from the debris field are the file that remains.