Plane Plunges Into Lake Erie After Snowy Takeoff

SANDUSKY, Ohio —  A single-engine plane carrying at least nine people crashed Saturday in snowy weather shortly after taking off from an island in Lake Erie, the U.S. Coast Guard said. There was no immediate word on whether anyone survived.

The pilot radioed a frantic call for help shortly after taking off about 5 p.m., but controllers lost contact with the plane, Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Christopher Pasciuto said.

A helicopter found the wreckage about 7:30 p.m. about a mile west of Ontario’s Pelee Island, Pasciuto said.

The wreckage of the Georgian Express plane was in the water with ice around it, airline president Paul Mulrooney said.

Helicopter search lights were scanning the water to look for survivors, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Mark Freeman said. The cutter Neah Bay was headed from the Detroit area to join the search.

The plane, a Cessna 208 Caravan, was bound for Windsor, Ontario, across the border from Detroit, and crashed about 20 miles north of Sandusky.

Mulrooney said 10 people -- nine passengers and a pilot -- may have been on board, but it was unclear whether one passenger had gotten onto the plane.

Officials with the Canadian Coast Guard, the Ontario Provincial Police and Transport Canada -- Canada’s equivalent of the Federal Aviation Administration -- did not immediately return calls for comment.

Mulrooney said his Mississauga, Ontario-based company has flights between the island and Windsor up to three times daily.

“It’s only used in the winter months when the island is icebound and they can’t use the ferry to get back and forth,” he said.

The region has been locked in bitterly cold weather, with high temperatures remaining in the 20s Saturday in northern Ohio. The water temperature in Lake Erie, where waves were running 3 feet to 5 feet, was about 33 degrees.

Bob Wernecke, a pilot who flies between Ohio’s resort islands just south of Pelee Island, said he made six flights during the day before deciding about 5 p.m. that the low cloud cover and freezing rain had made conditions unsafe.

Located in the western Lake Erie basin between Cleveland and Detroit, Pelee Island and Ohio’s Lake Erie islands are popular summertime destinations but lightly populated in the off-season.