All six passengers presumed dead after plane went missing off US coast

All six individuals aboard an air ambulance that vanished over the weekend while en route from Bermuda to Boston are presumed dead, the aircraft operator confirmed. The announcement came shortly after the United States Coast Guard suspended its rescue mission in the waters off Nantucket, Massachusetts.

The private medical transport flight, operated under the call sign Heartbeat 104, carried four crew members from Canada alongside a patient and a family companion from Bermuda. In a public message, Latitude Air Ambulance acknowledged the devastating outcome, offering condolences to the victims' relatives and colleagues while confirming the loss of everyone on board.

The Gulfstream G-100 departed L.F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda late Friday night and was scheduled to arrive at Logan International Airport in Boston during the early morning hours of Saturday. However, air traffic officials with the Federal Aviation Administration lost tracking and contact with the plane shortly after 01:00 local time. By Saturday evening, search teams discovered a field of wreckage linked directly to the missing jet.

According to company officials, the Canadian team included two flight crew members and two medical personnel dispatched to Bermuda to pick up the patient and their relative for transit to the United States. Peter Byl, president of Latitude Air Ambulance, stated that the organization is focusing on helping the impacted families, caring for staff, and fully cooperating with official investigators.

Tracking records from FlightAware show the aircraft experienced an abrupt and steep loss of altitude, dropping from roughly 24,000 feet down to approximately 11,000 feet before transmission ceased entirely.

Audio recordings between the cockpit and flight control personnel revealed severe communication difficulties in the minutes leading up to the disappearance. According to air traffic exchanges reviewed by local media, controllers struggled to interpret the pilot's transmissions, repeatedly asking whether an emergency was being formally declared due to weak radio signals. Controllers ultimately logged that an emergency had been declared.

Regional dispatch logs also indicated that emergency ground teams had been alerted shortly past 01:00 local time to anticipate an incoming flight experiencing an electrical malfunction, before subsequent updates reported the plane had vanished from both radar and radio channels.

Latitude Air Ambulance stated it will not speculate on the technical factors or circumstances surrounding the disaster, noting that safety agencies conduct methodical inquiries to uncover the definitive causes of such aviation incidents.