Plane Stolen in Alabama May Have Crashed Off Louisiana

A search has resumed off Louisiana for a single-engine plane that authorities say was stolen from a small airport near the Alabama Gulf Coast.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough says two aircraft and a cutter were searching a 3,400-square-mile area of the Gulf of Mexico southeast of Venice on Tuesday, but had not found a plane or debris.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford tells The Times-Picayune that the airplane’s owner, Gulf Air Center Inc., reported the plane stolen Monday morning. He says the airplane left Jack Edwards Airport in Gulf Shores, Ala., shortly after 7 a.m.

Air traffic controllers in Houston contacted the Coast Guard in New Orleans after the airplane descended about 600 feet in three minutes and lost radar contact about 11 a.m. Monday.