The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed on Friday that a small plane that had become unresponsive to communication attempts crashed into the ocean near Jamaica.
Military planes that were scrambled to keep an eye on the plane were unable to contact the pilot, with the North American Aerospace Defense Command spokeswoman Capt. Jennifer Stadnyk confirming that it had been several hours since any communication had been received from the plane, the Los Angeles Times reports.
"When our fighters went up initially, they saw fog and frost on the windows," she said. The pilot may have lost consciousness at some point while the plane was flying down the Florida coast and when it entered Cuban airspace.
The single-engine turboprop plane, which received a military escort from two F-15 jets, was originally headed to Naples, Florida from Rochester, New York. The tail number N900KN identified the plane as one recently purchased by real estate developer Buckingham Properties CEO Larry Glazer, notes Aviation International News.
It isn't know if Glazer was on the plane Friday and emails to his son Rick Glazer and Dan Goldstein, a partner at the developer, were not immediately answered.
That is the second single-engine plane to crash into the ocean in less than a week. A Cirrus SR22, which was flying from Waukesha County Airport to Manassas, Virginia plummeted into the Pacific Ocean after also becoming unresponsive on Saturday.
While the military pilots on Friday were unable to look into the cockpit of the turboprop plane, the ones who escorted the Cirrus could clearly see the pilot slumped over in the seat.