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(CNN) — The U.S. Coast Guard and the Jamaica Defence Force suspended their searches Sunday for signs of a prominent New York couple whose plane crashed in the Caribbean Sea north of Jamaica.
“The Coast Guard suspends a search and rescue case with extremely great care and deliberation,” Capt. Todd M. Coggeshall, chief of response management for the Coast Guard, said in a news release.
“After a search area is saturated several times with a maximum number of assets, resources and crew effort, and persons in distress are still not located, a decision is made to suspend a case.”
Jamaica suspended its search because of bad weather, said Capt. Basil Jarett of the Jamaica Defence Force.
The Coast Guard said a C-130 aircraft located several small objects in the water.
The crew used smoke flares and two data marker buoys to mark the location for Coast Guard and Jamaican Defense Force boat crews, the Coast Guard said, but none of the searchers could relocate the objects on Saturday.
Jamaica had said one of its military search team spotted the objects.
The single-engine TBM-900 aircraft, owned by estate developer Larry Glazer and his wife, Jane, crashed into the Caribbean hours after the pilot told an air traffic controller that something was wrong as it flew south over the eastern United States.
The plane’s radio was silent for hours after the pilot’s call, prompting U.S. and Cuban military jets to trail the small private plane. The North American Aerospace Defense Command said those aboard might have suffered from hypoxia, which sets in when oxygen is lacking.
There were conflicting reports on how many people were on the plane, with the U.S. Coast Guard indicating there were three.
But relatives said the couple were the only two people on board and were headed from Rochester, New York, to their vacation home in Naples, Florida.
Those aboard were unresponsive for more than four hours, drifting southward over the U.S. mainland, the Atlantic Ocean and eventually into the Caribbean.
Pilot seen slumped over
U.S. fighter jet pilots said when they looked into the aircraft, they saw the pilot slumped over and the windows frosted.
The plane’s radio communication ended about 10 a.m. ET Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
At that time, it was above Statesville, North Carolina, about 600 miles south of the Rochester airport, which it left around 8:45 a.m.
The pilot asked to descend to 18,000 feet because “we have an indication that is not correct in the plane,” according to a stream of that transmission posted on LiveATC.net, which provides live air traffic control broadcasts.
The air traffic controller told the pilot to “stand by” and proceed to 25,000 feet as he worked on clearing the plane to go lower. The conversation continued off and on for more than four minutes, though it was largely one-sided: The pilot wasn’t clear in his remarks and didn’t declare any sort of emergency.
At one point, he simply repeated his call sign twice when the controller asked if he heard the request to drop down to 20,000 feet.
Data indicate the plane didn’t descend. It cruised for hours about 25,000 feet above the ground.
The private plane dropped off radar at 2:11 p.m., according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.com.
Estimates suggested the fuel would have run out at 2:15 p.m.
It crashed 14 miles off Jamaica’s northeast coast.
Fate of couple unknown
Jamaica and the United States swiftly dispatched government aircraft to the scene. Jamaican authorities said they found an oil slick in the prime search area.
The Coast Guard said search crews completed 12 search patterns covering about 3,750 square miles over 70 hours.
As they searched, the Glazer family in Rochester mourned. The couple have three children.
The children said in a statement they were “devastated by the tragic and sudden loss of our parents.” They said they are waiting for answers.
Larry Glazer co-founded Buckingham Properties in 1970 after graduating from Columbia University. The company owns and manages more than 50 properties in the greater Rochester area, according to his official bio.
The TBM-900 plane was owned by the company.
Jane Glazer founded QCI Direct, a 100-employee company that has an outlet store, according to its website.
Both Glazers knew how to fly.
U.S., Cuban fighter jets trail aircraft
The government stepped in when the plane lost communications with air traffic control.
NORAD dispatched two F-16 fighter jets from a base in Richland County, South Carolina. Another pair of fighter jets from Homestead, Florida, took over around 11:30 a.m. and escorted the plane past the U.S. mainland.
The American fighter jets broke off their pursuit 12 miles off Cuba, at which point a Cuban fighter jet took over.
Despite the longstanding tensions between the two countries, Cuba cooperated with the United States and did not consider the plane’s movement a violation of its airspace.
Cuba let the U.S. Coast Guard aircraft go through its airspace and gave permission for American “military aircraft, if necessary,” according to an official statement.
CNN’s Claudia Dominguez, Chelsea J. Carter, Aaron Cooper, John Newsome, Margot Haddad, Mike M. Ahlers, Patrick Oppmann, Ray Sanchez, Rande Iaboni and Deanna Hackney contributed to this report.
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