The search for the wreckage of a small private plane that crashed off the northeast coast of Jamaica with two people on board continued into Sunday after searchers spotted an oil slick where the aircraft is believed to have hit the water, authorities said, according to The Associated Press.
Two people aboard the plane are believed to have been killed: Larry Glazer, a real-estate executive from Rochester, New York; and his wife, Jane Glazer, but it is not yet known if anyone else was on the plane, the AP reported. The Glazers were known to jet between homes in Rochester and Naples.
The plane, with an unresponsive pilot, crashed on Friday after veering far off its course to Florida and triggering a U.S. security alert that prompted a fighter jet escort, according to the AP. The crash site is believed to be about 14 miles north of the coastal town of Port Antonio.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command suggested on its Twitter page that the aircraft's pilot may have suffered "possible hypoxia," a rare condition caused by a loss of cabin pressure that may have left everyone on board unconscious, the AP reported.
The pilot stopped responding to radio calls about an hour after takeoff from Greater Rochester International Airport and was headed to Naples Municipal Airport in Florida, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration reported, the AP reported.
The Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority said the wreckage is believed to have sunk into the ocean in an area about 6,600 feet deep, the AP reported. Neither debris nor bodies had been recovered yet.
"We would have to assume that the debris sank because we didn't find it at the surface," Jamaican Coast Guard Commander Antonette Wemyss-Gorman said at a news conference on Saturday, according to the AP.
The Jamaica Defense Force "conducted searches overnight and this morning in same location where they spotted an oil spill," she added, the AP reported.
"We have been in contact with the family, and we're keeping them updated," said Elizabeth Lee Martinez, chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kingston, according to the AP.
