Crews searching for pilot missing after plane crashes off Newfoundland’s east coast

Newfoundland and Labrador's provincial flag flies on a flag pole in Ottawa on July 6, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

ST. JOHN'S — Crews are searching for a pilot missing in the waters off the east coast of Newfoundland after a pontoon plane crashed this morning while en route to Portugal.

Len Hickey with the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax says officials received an SOS and an emergency transmitter alert from a small, single-engine American pontoon plane at about 9:08 a.m. Atlantic time.

The signals originated from an area roughly 225 kilometres off the coast of St. John’s, N.L.

Hickey says a crew including a Coast Guard vessel, two local fishing boats, a Cormorant helicopter and a Hercules aircraft have been looking for the pilot all day.

He says crews were able to find one of the plane’s pontoons, some debris and an empty orange life raft, but so far there is no sign of the pilot, who was the lone occupant.

The Transportation Safety Board says the Air Tractor AT-802 took off from the St. John’s International Airport and was being flown to an unspecified destination in Portugal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 29, 2025.

The Canadian Press