Plane Stolen in Alabama May Have Crashed Off Louisiana

August 4, 2011

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.

Was this article valuable?

Here are more articles you may enjoy.