Search underway for eight passengers of a downed North Carolina plane

Eight people, including four teenagers, are missing after plane crashes off North Carolina coast

  • A Pilatus PC-12 was spotted ‘behaving erratically’ before disappearing Sunday night about four miles east of Drum Inlet, North Carolina 
  • Coast Guard boats, as well as an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter military aircrew, launched a search of the area Sunday to find the single-engine aircraft
  • On Monday, teams added a Coast Guard C-130 fixed-wing aircraft to assist efforts
  • The origin of the plane was not immediately clear Monday 

The US Coast Guard is searching for a passenger plane carrying eight people – including four teenagers – that went down off the coast of North Carolina on Sunday.

The Pilatus PC-12 was last seen on radar ‘behaving erratically’ before disappearing Sunday night about four miles east of Drum Inlet, the Coast Guard said in a statement. 

Among the passengers were five Carteret County teens returning home from a waterfowl hunting trip, local residents said. 

Coast Guard boats, as well as an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter military aircrew, launched a search of the area Sunday to find the single-engine aircraft and on Monday added a Coast Guard C-130 fixed-wing aircraft to assist efforts.

Although it can be challenging to recover downed aircrafts in bodies of water, a spokesman said he’s optimistic crews will be able to locate the missing plane.

‘It can be very difficult, but we’re well equipped to provide adequate search efforts, especially since we have so many partner agencies working with is,’ spokesman Edward Wargo told DailyMail.com. ‘This is something the Coast Guard trains for, and we’ve experienced this before.’

A single-engine passenger plane carrying eight people went down off the coast of Drum Inlet, North Carolina on Sunday

 

Search crews are now working to recover the Pilatus PC-12 single engine airplane, similar to the one shown in this 2008 file photo

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