Canadian Air Ambulance With Six Aboard Missing Near Nantucket After Declaring Emergency En Route to Boston
By Jahanzaib Saqib — SCN News
NANTUCKET, Mass. — U.S. rescue crews were searching the Atlantic off Nantucket on Saturday for a Canadian air ambulance carrying six people after the jet declared an emergency, descended sharply and disappeared from air traffic control while approaching Boston on a medical evacuation flight from Bermuda.
The missing Gulfstream G100 was operated by Latitude Air Ambulance, a medical transport company based in Hamilton, Ontario. Four crew members and two passengers were aboard, including two pilots, two medical personnel, a patient and a relative accompanying the patient. The company said all four crew members are Canadian citizens, while the two passengers are Bermudians.
The aircraft departed Bermuda's L.F. Wade International Airport late Friday night for Boston Logan International Airport and was expected to arrive early Saturday. Instead, controllers lost contact as the aircraft approached the northeastern United States, triggering a search involving the U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Aviation Administration and local authorities around Nantucket.
Information emerging from the aircraft's final minutes has made the disappearance particularly concerning. Flight-tracking data showed the jet traveling for much of the journey at approximately 24,000 feet before descending rapidly to around 11,000 feet as it approached the Massachusetts coast. Contact was subsequently lost before the aircraft reached Boston.
Air traffic communications indicate that the flight had declared an emergency before disappearing. A New York air traffic controller attempted to clarify the nature of the problem after communications with the aircraft became weak, eventually confirming that the crew was declaring an emergency. The available recordings do not establish exactly what was happening aboard the aircraft at that moment.
Emergency crews at Boston Logan were also alerted before the aircraft disappeared. Radio communications indicated that responders were initially preparing for an incoming aircraft experiencing what was described as an electrical issue and expected it to arrive within minutes. The jet never reached the airport, and emergency preparations at Logan were eventually stood down after controllers lost both radio and radar contact.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a formal search-and-rescue alert for the Gulfstream at approximately 1:20 a.m. Saturday. The Coast Guard subsequently deployed aircraft and vessels into the waters off Nantucket, where search teams were concentrating efforts based on the aircraft's last known flight path.
The operation includes fixed-wing search aircraft, an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, a motor lifeboat and the Coast Guard cutter William Sparling. Nantucket police and harbor personnel have also searched the island's airport and monitored its southern shoreline for any sign of the missing jet.
No wreckage had been publicly confirmed as of Saturday afternoon, and authorities had not established what happened to the aircraft after contact was lost. That distinction remains important because officials continue to describe the mission as a search-and-rescue operation rather than confirming that the aircraft crashed.
Latitude Air Ambulance said the flight was transporting a patient from Bermuda to Boston for medical care. Medical evacuation flights routinely carry specialized healthcare personnel and equipment because their passengers may require monitoring or treatment throughout the journey, making the disappearance both an aviation emergency and an interrupted medical mission.
The company's operations manager said Latitude had been tracking the aircraft and became concerned when communication stopped as the jet approached Boston. When the aircraft failed to arrive, the company contacted U.S. authorities and began coordinating with Transport Canada while search teams mobilized.
Latitude operates long-range medical evacuation flights from its base at John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Ontario. The company uses Gulfstream G100 aircraft configured for medical transport and operates internationally when patients need to be transferred over distances unsuitable for conventional ground ambulances or shorter-range medical aircraft.
The missing jet had flown from Hamilton to Bermuda earlier Friday before beginning the medical evacuation toward Boston. Its overnight return route took it north across the Atlantic toward New England, with Boston Logan serving as the destination for the patient transfer.
Canadian Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon confirmed that four Canadians were aboard and said Transport Canada was working with relevant authorities while the search continued. Canadian officials had not released the identities of the crew members, and authorities were withholding further personal information while families were being supported.
The Bermuda government said it was also in contact with the families of those aboard. Premier David Burt expressed hope that all six would be located safely and thanked American search-and-rescue personnel involved in the operation.
The National Transportation Safety Board has begun gathering information about the disappearance, although an accident investigation would depend on further evidence about what happened to the aircraft. The immediate priority remains locating the jet and determining whether survivors can be reached.
The Gulfstream G100 is a twin-engine business jet capable of long-distance operations and is used by specialized aviation companies for purposes including medical transport. The aircraft's range allows medical operators to conduct missions between locations such as Bermuda and northeastern U.S. medical centers without relying on multiple shorter flights.
What caused Saturday's emergency remains unknown. The reference to an electrical problem in emergency communications provides investigators with one possible line of inquiry, but authorities have not confirmed that an electrical failure caused the disappearance. Similarly, the aircraft's rapid descent demonstrates that something changed during the final phase of the flight but does not by itself establish what occurred inside the jet.
Search teams will therefore be looking for more than the aircraft itself. Any recovered wreckage, emergency locator transmissions, flight data, communications and radar information could help investigators reconstruct the sequence between the emergency declaration and the final loss of contact.
The offshore location creates additional challenges. Search crews must cover a large area of Atlantic water using aircraft, vessels and information from the aircraft's last known position, while changing weather, currents and visibility can affect how quickly objects or survivors can be located.
For Latitude Air Ambulance, the disappearance is an extraordinary event. The company's operations manager said it was the first time the organization had lost contact with one of its aircraft, while emphasizing that the company remained hopeful as the Coast Guard continued searching.
Several hours after the Gulfstream was supposed to arrive in Boston, the central facts remained limited but increasingly urgent: six people were aboard, the crew declared an emergency, the aircraft descended sharply, communications disappeared and the jet never reached Logan.
Until search teams locate the aircraft, what happened after those final communications remains unknown. Across the waters south of Massachusetts, Coast Guard aircraft and vessels are now trying to answer that question — and determine whether the four Canadian crew members and two Bermudian passengers can still be brought home safely.