Search on for downed plane, two people in Gulf

TAMPA - Rescue crews are searching for a plane carrying two people that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico Sunday night.

At about 7:45 p.m., an air traffic controller in Jacksonville reported that a twin-engine, fixed-wing aircraft traveling from Tallahassee to Vandenberg Airport in Hillsborough County crashed about 14-miles west of Yankeetown, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The identity of those on the private plane was unknown.

Along with boat crews from Coast Guard stations in Yankeetown and Sand Key, search crews aboard a Jayhawk helicopter and a HC-130 Hercules are flying over the water in search of the missing people.

- Chandra Broadwater, Times staff writer