A plane that went missing and was believed to have gone down off Cape Cod was located by dive teams on Thursday, but the pilot has not been recovered, Massachusetts State Police said.
The fuselage was reportedly located sometime Thursday during one of 9 dives off of Chatham, state police said. That came a day after partial landing gear was recovered during dives on Wednesday.
The U.S. Coast Guard had suspended its search for the missing plane on Tuesday morning. Prior to that, Coast Guard crews had searched a total of 55 hours covering more than 2,000 square miles with no sign of the missing aircraft or its pilot.
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The National Transportation Safety Board announced Tuesday it is investigating the crash.
The plane was reported missing off Nauset Beach in Orleans, Massachusetts, on Sunday, two hours after it was supposed to land.
The single engine plane, a white and beige Piper 28 aircraft, had only its pilot on board. It left from Reading Regional Airport in Pennsylvania and was en route to Chatham Airport on Sunday, where it was scheduled to land around 8:30 p.m.
A friend of the pilot contacted the Air Force Regional Command Center after waiting at Chatham Airport for almost two hours.
The Air Force reported to the Coast Guard around 10:30 p.m. that there was a possible downed aircraft four miles east of Sampson Island. The FAA reported the aircraft missing around 10 p.m. Sunday night.
The plane’s last transmitted transponder signal was at 6:49 p.m., descending at 4,000 feet per minute.
