A twin-engine plane carrying four people disappeared from radar off the coast of Andros Island Monday afternoon, triggering a joint U.S.-Bahamian search across open water roughly 15 miles from shore. The aircraft had been flying from Great Harbour Cay toward Miami Executive Airport in southwest Miami-Dade when it vanished amid a passing storm, and as of Monday afternoon, no word had emerged on the condition of anyone aboard.
According to WSVN 7News, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force asked the U.S. Coast Guard for help around 2 p.m., and Coast Guard officials say the plane spun around a few times off the Bahamian coast before disappearing from radar altogether. Whether weather was a direct factor in the disappearance remains unclear, though a storm was moving through the area at the time of the flight, the station reports. The Coast Guard responded by launching its Ocean Sentry surveillance plane to join the hunt, and search efforts were still underway Monday afternoon as crews worked to pinpoint exactly where the aircraft went down near Andros Island.
Aircraft Identified as Piper Seneca on Return Leg From the Berry Islands
The missing aircraft has been identified as a twin-engine Piper PA-34-200T Seneca II that had departed Great Harbour Cay for Miami Executive Airport Monday morning, after arriving in the Bahamas from Miami just days earlier on September 4, according to Eyewitness News Bahamas. All four occupants aboard were foreign nationals, the outlet reports, and flight tracking data placed the plane's last known position over waters off the west coast of North Andros Island. Great Harbour Cay Airport operates as a non-towered airfield roughly 130 miles east-northeast of Miami Executive Airport, meaning the flight would have crossed extended stretches of open ocean before nearing the Florida coast.
The search itself is being carried out under a bilateral framework that allows the U.S. Coast Guard to assist Bahamian authorities upon formal request, the same report notes. As part of that effort, the Coast Guard deployed an HC-144 Ocean Sentry medium-range surveillance plane from Air Station Miami to work alongside Royal Bahamas Defence Force crews searching the waters roughly 15 miles off Andros Island, according to Express.co.uk. Andros Island is the largest landmass in the Bahamian archipelago, and the outlet notes that search conditions around it vary sharply depending on localized weather and sea states, since the island is ringed by both shallow bank waters and much deeper ocean channels.
Second Aviation Scare Near Andros in Two Months
This is not the first time this year that North Andros has been the site of an aviation tragedy under close watch. A Flamingo Air Cessna 402 crashed in North Andros on July 10, killing all 10 people aboard in what was described as one of the deadliest aviation accidents in modern Bahamian history, as reported by CBS News. That crash occurred on Bahamas Independence Day and prompted heightened national scrutiny of flight safety across the country's outer islands, a backdrop that adds weight to Monday's search.
It has also been a busy stretch for aviation incidents along the broader Bahamas-to-Florida corridor. In May, the Coast Guard rescued 10 survivors from an Atlantic life raft after a Beechcraft King Air turboprop suffered engine failure on a flight from the Bahamas and ditched into the ocean off the Florida coast, according to CBS12. And in early August, 10 passengers and crew safely evacuated after a Tropic Ocean Airways seaplane struck a dock and sank off North Bimini, ABC13 reported. Those earlier incidents, both of which ended without fatalities, underscore how frequently light aircraft and seaplanes cross this stretch of water during peak travel season.
Who Leads the Investigation, and What Remains Unknown
Investigations into civil aircraft accidents in Bahamian airspace are led by the Bahamas Aircraft Accident Investigation Authority, working in coordination with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board when American-registered aircraft are involved. That process has not yet produced findings in Monday's case. It remains unknown whether the pilot issued any distress call before the plane disappeared from radar, what exact condition the search area off North Andros's west coast is in, or whether any wreckage or flotation equipment has yet been spotted by the Ocean Sentry crew or Royal Bahamas Defence Force searchers.
For now, officials have offered no update on the condition or fate of the four people aboard, and search efforts were continuing as of Monday afternoon. Given the region's recent history, families on both sides of the Florida Straits will be watching closely for any word from crews working the waters off Andros Island.
