Six presumed dead after air ambulance disappears en route to Boston

Six people aboard a Gulfstream G100 air ambulance are presumed dead after search efforts were called off, according to Latitude Air Ambulance. The aircraft was operating as Heartbeat 104 when it disappeared early Saturday on a medical transport flight from Bermuda to Boston.

The company said those aboard were four Canadian crew members, a Bermudian patient and the patient's family escort. The crew included two pilots and two medical personnel.

Debris linked to the aircraft was found roughly 20 miles south of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The U.S. Coast Guard searched about 4,445 square miles with aircraft and vessels over 66 hours before suspending operations Sunday evening and shifting to recovery.

Before contact was lost, the crew reported electrical problems and declared an emergency. Flight-tracking data showed the aircraft descending rapidly from about 24,000 feet to roughly 11,000 feet shortly after being handed from New York to Boston air traffic control. What caused the accident has not been established.

Latitude said it expects to work with the NTSB, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and other authorities during the recovery and investigation.