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Plane with unresponsive pilot crashes off Jamaica

Sept. 6, 2014 - 11:52 By 김연세

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - Shadowed by two U.S. fighter jets, a small plane with its windows frosted and its pilot slumped over flew a ghostly 1,700-mile journey down the Atlantic Coast and beyond Friday before finally crashing in the waters off Jamaica. The fate of the two or more people aboard was not immediately known.

The plane carrying a prominent real estate developer from Rochester, New York and his wife went down about 14 miles (22 kilometers) northeast of the coastal town of Port Antonio and Jamaica's military dispatched two aircraft and a dive team, said Maj. Basil Jarrett of the Jamaican Defense Force.

“An oil slick indicating where the aircraft may have gone down has been spotted in the area where we suspect the crash took place,” Jarrett said at an early evening news conference in the capital of Kingston.

No wreckage has been located, but Jarrett said search-and-rescue teams were scouring the waters for any survivors. As dark fell, Jamaica suspended the search until first light Saturday. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter is expected to join the search at that time, said Petty Officer Sabrina Laberdesque.

The single-engine turboprop Socata TBM700, which took off from the Greater Rochester International Airport in New York en route to Naples, Florida, was carrying Larry and Jane Glazer, the couple's son said.

Rick Glazer said that his parents were both licensed pilots. He said he couldn't confirm they were killed, adding that “we know so little.”