Mystery shrouds US couple’s plane crash

Associated Press

KINGSTON, JAMAICA

Rescue crews searching off Jamaica’s coast Saturday said they could no longer see debris spotted earlier, stymieing efforts to solve the mystery surrounding a small plane carrying a prominent upstate New York couple that went on a ghostly 1,700-mile journey after the pilot apparently was incapacitated.

Jamaican officials said that possible wreckage from the single-engine turboprop Socata TBM700 was sighted Friday evening by a military aircraft flying off the island’s northeast coast, drifting roughly 24 miles off the coastal town of Port Antonio.

The island’s military said that Jamaican and U.S. officials felt the sighting was “consistent with that of a high-impact debris field.”

But on Saturday, Jamaica Coast Guard Commander Antonette Wemyss-Gorman said that the pieces of floating debris could no longer be seen.

“We would have to assume it may have sunk,” she said.

The area where the private French-made plane went down has depths of up to more than 6,500 feet, according to Leroy Lindsay, director general of Jamaica’s civil aviation authority.

Lindsay said French authorities have volunteered to provide help to bring wreckage up from the ocean depths when it is found.

The plane was carrying Rochester real-estate developer Laurence Glazer and his entrepreneur wife, Jane — both experienced pilots. On Friday, U.S. fighter pilots were launched to shadow the unresponsive aircraft and observed the pilot slumped over and its windows frosting over. Officials say the plane slammed into the sea when it ran out of fuel at least 14 miles off Jamaica’s northeast coastline.