Air Ambulance Jet Vanishes Off Massachusetts Coast With 6 Aboard

A medical evacuation jet carrying six people has vanished off the coast of Massachusetts in the early hours of Saturday morning, triggering a major search-and-rescue operation by the US Coast Guard. The Gulfstream G-100, en route from Bermuda to Boston, lost contact with air traffic controllers shortly after 1 a.m. local time and never arrived at its destination.

A Gulfstream G100, the same model of aircraft that disappeared on the Bermuda–Boston flight. (File photo)

The aircraft, a Gulfstream G-100 with Canadian registration C-GJRP operated by Latitude Air Ambulance of Hamilton, Ontario, had departed L.F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda at 11:40 p.m. local time on Friday. It was scheduled to land at Boston Logan International Airport at 1:30 a.m. EDT on Saturday.

The Final Hours of the Flight

According to flight-tracking data from FlightAware, the aircraft dropped significantly in altitude during its final minutes, falling from roughly 24,000 feet to about 11,000 feet before its communications ceased. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a search-and-rescue alert notice for the Gulfstream at around 1:20 a.m. local time on Saturday and notified the Coast Guard in the early morning hours, Reuters reported.

Massport, which operates Boston Logan International Airport, confirmed in a statement to NBC10 Boston that the aircraft did not arrive as scheduled. “Our thoughts are with those on board and their loved ones as the search continues,” a Massport spokesperson said.

The Gulfstream G-100 is a mid-size twin-engine business jet frequently configured for air-ambulance work, and the Canadian-registered aircraft, C-GJRP, was flying under Latitude Air Ambulance’s banner on what was meant to be the final leg of a mercy mission: bringing a patient from Bermuda to a major US medical hub.

The Company’s Response

Six people were aboard the flight: two pilots, two medical staff, one patient and a family member, company spokesman Clarence Togeretz told AFP. The Associated Press reported the manifest as four crew members and two passengers.

The flight was a medical evacuation mission. The director of flight operations at Latitude Air Ambulance told NBC News that the plane had been carrying out a medical evacuation in Bermuda before beginning the return leg to Boston. ABC News reported that there were no American citizens among those on board. Authorities have not released the names of any of the six people.

Latitude Air Ambulance is based in Hamilton, Ontario, and operates a fleet of 10 planes providing repatriation and medical evacuation services, flying people home from anywhere in the world, according to its website. Company spokesman Clarence Togeretz, who confirmed the identities-by-role of those aboard to AFP, said he had no other information about the rescue effort. The company has not issued a fuller public statement.

The waters off Nantucket, Massachusetts, where the US Coast Guard is concentrating its search.

The Search Effort

The US Coast Guard’s Northeast District said it had dispatched air and surface crews to search the waters near Nantucket, an island off the Massachusetts coast south of the mainland. The Coast Guard announced the operation on X, saying surface vessels and aircraft were combing the area where the Gulfstream was last tracked.

The FAA is coordinating with the Coast Guard and the Rescue Coordination Center to locate the air ambulance. According to Accuweather, weather conditions around Nantucket were clear as of Saturday morning, a small mercy for the crews scanning the Atlantic.

A Race Against Time in Open Water

Flights like this one — moving a patient from a remote location such as Bermuda to a major medical hub like Boston — are routine for air-ambulance operators.

But a night-time disappearance over open water is among the hardest scenarios search teams can face. Darkness, ocean currents and the sheer scale of the Atlantic can scatter even large pieces of wreckage far from the last known position, and every hour that passes matters. Rescuers have not yet reported finding any trace of the aircraft.

What This Means

The altitude drop recorded in the tracking data — from 24,000 feet to 11,000 feet before the signal was lost — will almost certainly become a central line of inquiry for investigators once the search phase ends. Whether it points to a mechanical failure, an emergency descent or something else entirely is far too early to say, and no official has speculated publicly about a cause.

The Bermuda–Boston corridor is a well-traveled path for medical transfer flights, and Latitude Air Ambulance conducts such missions routinely. When an air ambulance goes down, the stakes are doubled: there is a patient on board, already in medical need, alongside the crew trying to get them home.

The fact that the plane’s descent was captured in tracking data matters. It means investigators will not be starting from zero — the last minutes of the flight, including the altitude profile, give them a physical thread to follow once the aircraft or its recorders are found. But a descending track on a screen is not an explanation: an emergency descent, a loss of pressurization, a medical crisis in the cockpit or a catastrophic mechanical failure could all, in principle, produce similar traces. Only wreckage and flight recorders can tell the difference.

A US Coast Guard helicopter during a search-and-rescue drill over open water. (File photo)

What Happens Next

The Coast Guard search is continuing, and officials are expected to release updates as the operation develops. If wreckage is located, the focus will shift to recovery and then to a formal investigation, which in cases like this is typically led by the National Transportation Safety Board with the FAA’s cooperation. If nothing is found, the search pattern is likely to expand outward from the last known position, guided by drift models and ocean-current data.

The company has said it had no information beyond confirming the aircraft’s disappearance. For the families of the six people on board — two pilots, two medics, a patient and their loved one — the hours since the jet dropped off radar have become an agonizing wait for news.