Pictured: A Piper PA-32-300 Cherokee Six at Nassau – Lynden Pindling International (Windsor Field)
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Stephen B. Aranha
What: Piper Saratoga enroute from Nassau Lynden Pindling International Airport to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport
Where: 10 miles northeast of Bimini Bahamas
When: January 17, 2010 4:50 p.m
Who: pilot and 2 passengers including Andrew Peterson and J.P. Antonmattei.
Why: Pilot David Howell and two or three passengers departed Nassau for Fort Lauderdale at 2:49, and made no distress calls. Howell had been working on opening a bed and breakfast in the Bahamas, and his companions were investors. At 4:40 p.m. Sunday, the Bahamas Civil Aviation Department Air Traffic Services was notified that the Piper had ditched two miles off Bimini. Witnesses saw the plane going down just before 5 pm. The U S Coast Guard and the Royal Bahamas Police Force are searching the area for survivors. Reports conflict as to whether or not one body was recovered Sunday evening northeast of the Bimini Bay Resort, or whether divers saw remains in the plane Monday.
The Bahamian FAA is the lead agency in the case.
On the way to the Bahamas, there was also a couple aboard, but the couple elected to stay in the Nassau. Initial reports speculated that there was a fourth person aboard on the return flight.
