Searchers have detected an underwater beacon from the Guardian Flight air ambulance that vanished en route to the Southeast community of Kake, the company said in a statement Tuesday.
The plane with three crew members aboard departed Anchorage on Jan. 29 but never arrived in Kake. A three-day search turned up a piece of a wing near Kake, but there was no sign of the wreckage or three crew members aboard.
Randy Lyman, Guardian Flight’s vice president of operations, said a ping from the plane’s “black box” was detected Tuesday. Efforts to triangulate the signal and recover the twin-engine aircraft are expected to follow, he said in a statement.
Aboard were three Juneau residents: 63-year-old pilot Patrick Coyle, 30-year-old flight nurse Stacie Rae Morse and 43-year-old paramedic Margaret Langston.
Jacob Resneck is CoastAlaska's regional news director in Juneau.
