Private plane crashes off coast of Jamaica

(CNS): A light aircraft bound for Florida has crashed some 14 miles of the coast of Jamaica after the pilot stopped responding to air-traffic control, Friday. US and Jamaican authorities have confirmed that the unresponsive plane carrying two passengers from New York state came down around 2:15 this afternoon north-east of Port Antonio. Both Jamaican and US Coast Guard planes and ships are on their way to the crash site of the Socata TBM-700, which took off from Rochester at 08:26 but it stopped responding to us air traffic control around 10am. The US scrambled two fighter jets to investigate but it is not clear what had happened to the plane.

Norad said it was not possible for the jet fighter pilots to see inside the single propeller plane before it crashed as the windows were frosted or fogged over. A tweet from the US military organisation suggested the pilot or pilots could be unresponsive due to "possible hypoxia" a lack of oxygen in the Cabin which may mean the pilots and passengers had all lost consciousness. The plane was flying at an altitude of 25,000 feet southbound over the Caribbean Sea, approaching the north east point of Jamaica, when it went off radar.

The US Federal Aviation Administration said it had also co-operated with Cuban air traffic authorities in monitoring the plane, despite the diplomatic impasse between the nations for more than fifty years. The plane had travelled some 1,700 miles across Cuba’s air space before it crashed.

The plane is registered to company owned by Larry Glazer a real estate developer from Rochester who is understood to have been one of the passengers along with his wife Rachel who were understood to be planning to spend the weekend in Naples where they have real estate interests.