A private Jet crashed into the Baltic Sea near Latvia on Sunday with four passengers on board, according to officials. The private Cessna plane is thought to have crashed just off the coast of Latvia with rescue planes and boats sent to the site of the crash by the Swedish Maritime Administration.
The Austrian-registered aircraft was flying from Jerez in southern Spain according to FlightRadar24. Air traffic reportedly lost contact with the private jet, which was bound for Cologne, Germany, but continued north towards the Baltic Sea.
The flight path indicated that the aircraft turned twice, at Paris and Cologne, before hovering over the Baltic, passing near the Swedish island of Gotland. Shortly after 5.30pm, it was listed on the tracker as losing speed and altitude.
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A rescue effort is underway as the Swedish Coast Guards confirmed they have found a wreckage of the Cessna 551 aircraft, the Mirror reports. According to German Bild, a pilot, a woman, a man and their daughter were all flying when the plane came down.
The outlet reports that shortly after take-off, the plane reported that there was a problem with the pressure in the cabin. Contact was lost, just outside the Iberian Peninsula. The NATO fighter aircraft took off on Sunday evening to follow a Cessna plane, a Lithuanian airforce spokesperson said.
FlightRadar announced its last recorded altitude was 2,100 ft, with a descent of -800 ft per minute. At 5.37pm GMT it was listed on the tracker as rapidly losing speed and altitude.
"We've learned that the plane has crashed (in the ocean) north-west of the town of Ventspils in Latvia," a spokesperson for Sweden's rescue service said. "It has disappeared from the radar."
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