Piper PA-31 Plane Missing After Leaving South Carolina for Bahamas, Coast Guard Conducting Search

Missing Plane
The small, two-engine Piper left Robert F. Swinnie Airport in Andrews, South Carolina, on October 25 but lost contact shortly after turning back toward Charleston, South Carolina. Flight Aware

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) launched a new search by air on Friday for a small plane that went missing off the coast of South Carolina on Thursday.

The small civilian aircraft, a Piper PA-31, was traveling from Robert F. Swinnie Airport in Andrews, South Carolina, toward Governor's Harbor Airport in the Bahamas when it went missing at 11:33 a.m. Andrews is about an hour south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center received a report of an in-flight emergency on Thursday, the Coast Guard said in a press release. The traffic control center lost contact with the aircraft on radar and notified the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center.

USCG Petty Officer Ryan Dickinson told The State on Friday that Coast Guard ships were on the scene about 110 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina. An HC-130 Hercules aircraft from the Coast Guard's Air Station Clearwater conducted a first light search for the downed plane.

At noon on Friday, the Coast Guard announced that crews had searched approximately 2,600 square miles for the downed aircraft. It tweeted, "[USCG] assets continue to search by air and sea."

The twin-engine plane with tail number N555PM can be seen taking off from Swinnie Airport and flying out into the Atlantic Ocean before turning back toward Charleston, according to the plane-tracking website Flight Aware. The plane then disappeared from the radar, the track revealed.

The website identified the plane as a 1976 two-engine Piper owned by Bulldog Flying Club Inc., based in Wilmington, Delaware. The aircraft reached an altitude of about 25,000 feet and a top speed of 270 mph before it dropped off the radar.

Federal Aviation Administration regional spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen told The Post and Courier that it would not confirm any details about the plane until it was found and its occupants identified.

Two aircraft from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, a HC-130 Hercules and a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, were aiding in the search, according to a press release on Thursday. The Coast Guard added that the Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton, Coast Guard Cutter Nathan Bruckenthal, commercial vessel Seabulk Challenge and Navy P-3 Orion were assisting in the response.

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