Bahamian authorities asked the United States Coast Guard for help after a plane carrying four people went down near Andros Island while heading toward Miami Executive Airport in Southwest Miami-Dade. The Coast Guard got the request from the Royal Bahamian Defense Force around 2 p.m. and sent its ocean sentry plane to join the search.
That request came after reports of a downed plane about 15 miles off Andros Island, a stretch of water that quickly pulled search crews into a wider area than anyone wanted. As of Monday afternoon, crews were still working to locate where the plane went down, and there was no word on the status of the four occupants.
The route is one part of why the search drew immediate attention. The plane had taken off from Great Harbour Cay and was scheduled to land at Miami Executive Airport in Southwest Miami-Dade, a flight that was being tracked as it crossed the Bahamian coast.
Flight tracking information showed the plane’s path before it disappeared from radar. During the flight, it appeared to spin around a few times off the Bahamian coast, then vanish. A passing storm was in the area at the time, but it is not clear whether weather played any role in the plane going down.
That uncertainty is the center of the search now. Crews are trying to find the wreckage first, then determine what happened to the four people aboard. Until the site is located, the basic questions remain open: where the plane came down, what caused it to go down, and whether anyone on board survived.
