By Associated Press
and Sentinel Staff
Guardian Flight has released the names of the three people aboard the twin-engine medevac plane that went missing Tuesday evening on a flight from Anchorage to Kake, where it was to pick up a patient.
Randy Lyman, Guardian Flight senior vice president of operations, posted on the company’s Facebook page today:
“On board were Pilot Patrick Coyle, 63, Flight Nurse Stacie Rae Morse, 30, and Flight Paramedic Margaret Langston, 43, all based in Juneau. (Margaret was earlier identified as Margaret Langston Allen, but we have been informed by her family that she was recently married, and her last name is now Langston.) We continue to ask for everyone’s prayers and support as we focus on families, crew members, and the entire Guardian Flight team and extended family of all those involved.”
Searchers found part of an aircraft wing and other debris in the water off the south end of Admiralty Island Wednesday.
“While the Coast Guard and others continue the search for the missing Guardian Flight aircraft off the coast of Alaska, the debris found by searchers, unfortunately, gives us a very strong indication that it was our airplane,” Lyman said in his post. “While search and rescue efforts are continuing in an attempt to find survivors, we are resigned to accept that the aircraft was ours.”
The search for the King Air 200 aircraft and the three aboard was continuing today, the Coast Guard said.
Coast Guard Public Affairs Chief Charly Hengen said in an email to the Sentinel that today’s search efforts are concentrated in the area where the debris was located Wednesday.
The Coast Guard Cutters Anacapa and Bailey Barco, along with an Air Station Sitka Jayhawk aircrew, were joined by two Alaska State Trooper vessels in today’s search, Hengen said.
She said she didn’t know whether the volunteer search and rescue squads that had gone out Tuesday and Wednesday, were continuing to help in the effort.
Federal accident investigators reviewed radar flight information received from the plane during its flight to Kake, but no clues as to what happened were immediately found in the search of data showing the plane’s flight pattern, said Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board in Alaska.
The Coast Guard said no electronic locating transmitter signal was received from the missing plane.
When the plane failed to arrive in Kake Tuesday, residents in a dozen boats went out to search, and some went back out Wednesday, Kake City Administrator Rudy Bean said.
“It’s just a sad situation,” he said.
The search by boats, ferries and aircraft was focused on an area of sea about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Kake, Hengen said. “We’re just diligently still continuing the search and hope that we find the overdue aircraft and individuals,” she said.
Guardian Flight grounded all of its 85 aircraft across the U.S. after the plane went missing Tuesday as a show of respect for the three aboard, said company spokesman Jim Gregory.
“That really gave our employees time to reflect on what’s happened to the missing crew members and to pray,” he said. The Utah-based company gradually re-started operations with aircraft based outside of Alaska, Gregory said.
Light rain, 7 mph winds and 10-mile visibility were reported Tuesday in the area around the time the plane was due in Kake, Hengen said.
