Date:
December 1, 2008

Contact:
PA1 Tasha Tully
(727) 502-1553

Media note:  There is no video available of this case.

YANKEETOWN, Fla. - The Coast Guard is continuing its search for two people in the water after a private aircraft possibly crashed into the Gulf of Mexico at about 6:45 p.m. Sunday, 20-miles southwest of Yankeetown, Fla.

Darien Peckham, a 35-year-old man, hometown unknown, and Zachary Schlitt, a 28-year-old man, hometown unknown, are reported to have been flying from Tallahassee, Fla., to Vandenberg Airport in Tampa, Fla., when their single-engine, fixed-wing Beechcraft aircraft (tail number N945T) dropped off radar and possibly crashed into the Gulf.

Rescue boat crews from Coast Guard Station Yankeetown and Coast Guard Station Sand Key, in Clearwater, Fla., along with an HH-60 Jayhawk rescue-helicopter crew and an HC-130 Hercules search-plane crew, both from Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater, are searching the water for Peckham and Schlitt or any sign of the aircraft. 

The weather conditions at the time the plane went missing were 10- to 12-foot seas with 20- to 25-knot winds and strong thunderstorms.

Please check www.D7PublicAffairs.com for updates.