Date:
December 1, 2008 

Contact:
PA1 Tasha Tully
(727) 502-1553

Media note: There are no photos or video available of this case.

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

Darien Peckham, a 35-year-old man, and Zachary Schlitt, a 28-year-old man, hometowns unknown, were in a single-engine, fixed-wing Beechcraft airplane (tail number N945T) enroute from Tallahassee, Fla., to Vandenberg Airport in Tampa, Fla., when air-traffic controllers in Jacksonville, Fla., reported to the Coast Guard that the plane dropped off the radar and crashed into the Gulf.

Coast Guard rescue crews have located two small debris fields within the search area but have not located the aircraft or the men.  The rescue crews found a seat and a flight bag that contained aviation head phones among the debris.

Searching are:

• A Coast Guard Station Sand Key 47-foot response boat
• An Air Station Clearwater HH-60 Jayhawk rescue helicopter
• An Air Station Clearwater HC-130 Hercules search plane
• The Coast Guard Cutter Marlin, an 87-foot cutter homeported in Ft. Myers, Fla.

 The weather conditions at the time of the crash were 10- to 12-foot seas with 20- to 25-knot winds and strong bands of thunderstorms.  The weather conditions currently onscene are 2- to 3-foot seas with 15-knot winds.  The water temperature is 72 degrees.

Please check www.d7publicaffairs.com for updates.