Plane with two on board still missing off Florida coast. Coast Guard to continue search.

The Coast Guard will continue its rescue mission Friday night into Saturday morning after crews responded to a downed plane off Florida’s east coast Friday afternoon.

The small aircraft, a Piper N3016L, went down at about 1 p.m. 23 miles east of Palm Beach, officials said on Twitter. Late Friday night, neither the plane nor any wreckage had been found. There were two people on board. According to the Palm Beach Post, one of the passengers is a longtime Florida veterinarian, Ken Simmons.

The plane was heading to the Bahamas from the Lantana airport in Palm Beach County, officials said. It’s still unclear what caused the plane to go down.

Coast Guard officials could not be reached Friday night.

This story was originally published February 1, 2019 at 4:31 PM.

Monique O. Madan

Miami Herald

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Monique O. Madan covers immigration and enterprise; she previously covered breaking news and local government. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald and The Dallas Morning News. In 2019 she was a Reveal Fellow at the Center for Investigative Reporting. She’s a graduate of Harvard University, Emerson College and The Honors College at Miami Dade College. A note to tipsters: If you want to send Monique confidential information, her email and mailbox are open. You can find all her stories here: moniqueomadan.com. You can also direct message her on social media and she’ll provide encrypted Signal details. Support my work with a digital subscription