Six missing after medical plane disappears off Massachusetts coast

US authorities are searching for six people after a medical flight heading to Boston vanished in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it lost contact with the Gulfstream G-100 aircraft and issued a search-and-rescue alert shortly after 1:00am local time (6:00 GMT).

The US Coast Guard's Northeast District confirmed that air and sea search operations are underway near Nantucket, an island off the Massachusetts coast.

Flight-tracking data from FlightAware shows the plane left Bermuda's L.F. Wade International Airport at 11:40pm local time and had been due to land at Boston's Logan International Airport at 1:30am EDT (6:30 GMT).

Based on the aircraft's tail number, the Coast Guard identified it as belonging to Latitude Air Ambulances, a company that operates international medical flights to bring patients home.

Clarence Togeretz, the company's director of flight operations, told CBC News that two pilots and two medical staff on board were Canadian nationals.

He said the crew had travelled to Bermuda to pick up a patient and a family member, both of whom were not Canadian.