Photo: MAZEN MAHDI/AFP via Getty
The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for a medical aircraft that crashed into the ocean overnight near Hawaii.
Global Medical Response has confirmed that the aircraft was a Hawaii Life Flight emergency fixed wing airplane, used for medical transport, a spokesperson for Hawaii Life Flight tells PEOPLE.
The aircraft went off radar around 9:30 p.m. local time on Thursday while traveling from Maui to Waimea Big Island, the spokesperson says. No patients were in the aircraft at the time of the crash.
“We are asking everybody to please pray that we find them safely,“Global Medical Response saidin a post on Facebook.
The Coast Guard said the plane reportedly lost contact with Honolulu Control Facility about15 nautical miles offshoreSouth of Hana, according to Hawaii News Now.
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“I immediately looked at him out the window, and as soon as I turned around to look at him I kinda saw him pointing down towards us,” the flight instructor said, according to the outlet.
“Then he made a right turn, like a downward spiral, I’ve never seen an aircraft go just straight down,” he added. “I saw hit the water and then his navigation lights kinda disappeared in the darkness.”
A search for the missing aircraft and its passengers is ongoing, the Coast Guard said.
Hawaii Life Flight has paused transport flights amid the search, the spokesperson tells PEOPLE, adding that Global Medical Response is notifying the family members of the missing people who were on the plane.
“Our immediate focus is helping the search and rescue teams,” the spokesperson says. “Please keep our team members in your thoughts.”
A post on the company’s Facebook page reads, “We are doing everything we can to bring our team members home.”
source: people.com
