The Swedish rescue service said a private Cessna plane crashed off the coast of Latvia on Sunday after NATO sent jets to follow the plane.
The 551 aircraft registered in Austria was flying from Jerez in southern Spain, where it departed without a specific destination, according to the website FlighRadar24.
It made two turns in Paris and Cologne before heading towards the Baltics, passing near the Swedish island of Gotland. It was later listed by the flight tracking website as rapidly losing speed and altitude.
“We saw the plane crash (in the ocean) northwest of the city of Ventspils in Latvia,” a spokesperson for the Swedish rescue service said. “It disappeared from the radar.”
A Lithuanian air force spokesman said a Lithuanian air force helicopter was sent to the crash site for a search and rescue operation at the request of neighboring Latvia. Spokespersons for Latvia’s air traffic control and rescue services were not available for immediate comment.
NATO follows the plane
A NATO jet took off earlier to follow the plane, a Lithuanian air force spokesperson told Reuters. The Swedish rescue service said they reported that there was no one visible in control of the Cessna plane.
A spokesperson for the Lithuanian air force told Reuters that the jet belonged to NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission at Estonia’s Amari airport.
According to NATO, the mission at the airbase currently consists of four German Air Force Eurofighter jets. The spokesperson did not say how many jets there were or comment further.
source: Noticias
