(Reuters) – The U.S. Coast Guard was searching an area four miles (6 km) off the Outer Banks of the North Carolina coast for a plane that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean with eight people aboard, finding some debris in the water but no signs of life, officials said.
The Pilatus PC-12 single-engine passenger plane went down on Sunday afternoon, prompting a search that included a lifeboat crew, helicopter, C-130 aircraft and other assets, Coast Guard spokesperson Edward Wargo said.
A U.S. Marine Corps air traffic controller reported that the plane was seen behaving erratically on radar then disappeared from the screen, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
The search could continue through the night, Wargo said.
The plane crashed into the water about 18 miles (29 km) northeast of Michael J. Smith Field, a public airport in Beaufort, North Carolina, about 2 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Sunday, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate, the FAA said.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Mark Porter)
