Cumming Connection to Missing MS Plane

Two men who are employed by a company in Cumming are missing along with the pilot of an aircraft that vanished shortly after taking off in Mississippi on Monday.

Dexter Brewer and Gerald Miletello were on board a Lancair jet that departed from Gulfport, MS en route to South Carolina when ground controllers lost contact with the aircraft about eight minutes after taking off. Brewer is the company manager of RMR Mechanical, while Miletello is the vice-president and co-owner of the contracting business.

The company has another office in West Monroe, LA, according to its website.

RMR President Bob Roy told the Sun Herald newspaper in Mississippi that the men were en route to South Carolina to meet with a client. Brewer’s wife Tina Cook told the Sun Herald that Brewer told her in a phone conversation before the flight that the pilot was planning to stick close to the coast to skirt nasty weather in the area.

A Coast Guard spokesman said Tuesday that rescue personnel are operating under the assumption that the men are still alive, according to the AP. The spokesman added that wreckage found on a nearby beach was almost certainly from the aircraft.

The last radar and cell phone contact from the aircraft came from over the Gulf of Mexico, the AP said.