It was meant to be a routine night run: a patient, a family member and a four-person medical crew, flying from Bermuda to Boston in a small twin-engine jet. Shortly after midnight on Saturday, 3 October 2026, the Gulfstream G100 air ambulance lifted off from L.F. Wade International Airport. It never reached Logan.

The jet, registered C-GRJP and operated by Hamilton, Ontario-based Latitude Air Ambulance, declared an emergency and then vanished from air traffic control south of Nantucket, Massachusetts. By Saturday night the US Coast Guard had found a debris field associated with the aircraft. As of Sunday morning, the search for the six people on board was still going on.

Here is what is known so far, and what is not.

An emergency, a steep descent, then silence

According to Bermuda's government and Canadian broadcasters, the aircraft left Bermuda shortly after midnight local time for the roughly two-hour flight to Boston. Latitude Air Ambulance told CP24 that it lost track of the jet around 1:30 a.m., and the Federal Aviation Administration alerted the Coast Guard after it lost contact.

The pilot declared an emergency before contact was lost. Flight-tracking data cited by Canadian and US media showed the jet descending from about 24,000 feet to roughly 10,000 to 11,000 feet within a couple of minutes before the signal disappeared. What caused that descent is not known, and no investigator has offered a theory.

The Coast Guard's Northeast district launched an HC-144 Ocean Sentry and an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Cape Cod, a 47-foot motor lifeboat from Station Brant Point on Nantucket, and the fast response cutter William Sparling. On Saturday night it announced that crews had located a debris field associated with the missing aircraft.

NBC reported that searchers had covered about 1,644 square miles in roughly 27 hours, with the cutter continuing through the night. A press conference was scheduled in Boston for Sunday morning.

Who was on board

The six people on the flight were a patient and a family member, both Bermudian, and four Canadian crew: two pilots and two medical staff. Their names had not been released by Sunday morning, and next of kin had been notified.

Clarence Togeretz, Latitude Air Ambulance's operations manager, told CP24 that this was the first time the company had ever lost contact with one of its aircraft. "We're praying for a safe outcome," he said.

The aircraft: a small, long-legged business jet

The Gulfstream G100 began life as the Israel Aircraft Industries Astra, a twin-engine business jet first delivered in the 1980s. It took the G100 name in 2002 after Gulfstream acquired the type from Galaxy Aerospace, and it was later developed into the larger G150. Both were built by Israel Aircraft Industries. The photo at the top of this article shows a G100 of the same type, not the missing aircraft; no freely licensed photo of C-GRJP is available.

The type is flown by two pilots and normally seats six to nine passengers, which makes it a natural fit for medical transport: fast enough to cover the roughly 670 nautical miles between Bermuda and Boston in about two hours, and small enough to fit a stretcher, a patient and a medical team.

What comes next

With a debris field located, the focus is on finding the six people on board and recovering the wreckage and the flight recorders, if the aircraft carried them. Investigators from the United States and Canada are expected to be involved, given that the aircraft is Canadian-registered and went down off the US coast.

Until investigators speak, everything else is speculation. What is certain is that six people set out on a mercy flight in the middle of the night, and the people who know the sea off Nantucket best are still out there looking for them.

Sources: US Coast Guard, Government of Bermuda, CP24, CBC News, NBC News, Global News, Boston 25 News