Coast Guard Calls Off Search For Missing Plane From PA

PENNSYLVANIA — The Coast Guard suspended its active search for a small plane from Pennsylvania that crashed into the ocean off the coast of Massachusetts near Cape Cod, pending further information. The plane left Reading Airport in Berks County on Sunday afternoon.

The National Transportation Safety Board announced Tuesday afternoon that it has opened an investigation into the incident, though no further information has been given.

At 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Coast Guard’s 1st District Northeast said in a news release that it called off the search at 9:30 a.m., after crews spent a total of 55 hours searching more than 2,076 square miles, with no sign of the missing pilot or aircraft.

At least six crews — as well as the harbormasters from Chatham, Harwich and Orleans — spent Sunday night and most of Monday searching the area off Nauset Beach for the single-engine white-and-beige Piper Cherokee plane. The pilot, who is still unidentified, departed from Reading on Sunday afternoon to meet a friend in Chatham on Sunday night.

At 10:34 p.m. Sunday, about 2½ hours after the pilot didn’t arrive, the friend called the police to alert them of a possibly downed plane. The FAA reviewed the radar data of the plane, which was last detected just before 7 p.m. about 3.5 miles off Hyannis, dropping 4,000 feet per minute, according to a CBS4 report. Normally, small planes descend between 500 and 1,000 feet per minute, Chatham airport manager Tim Howard told the Cape Cod Times.

Authorities said it took hours to estimate a location because of the delay in the friend’s call and the lack of a flight plan. “That’s a long time,” Chatham Harbormaster Stuart Smith told CBS4. “Hours later in the open ocean, it’s just, it’s a lifetime.”

As numerous crews searched choppy seas, they detected no odor of fuel or evidence of a plane, the Cape Cod Times reported. Crews searched different sections of the area using infrared technology, radar and lights but still found nothing.

Anyone with new information regarding the case is asked to call the Coast Guard’s Sector Southeastern New England at 508-457-3211.

With reporting from Patch correspondent Michael Wittner