A team of local divers and other Cleveland-based rescue crews announced plans Saturday to recover the missing plane and search for a CEO, his family and two neighbors that were aboard a flight that went missing shortly after takeoff from Burke Lakefront Airport.
The Coast Guard suspended its search and rescue mission efforts Friday at 7:30 p.m. to transition into to a recovery operation.
Khalid Bahhur, Commissioner of Burke Lakefront Airport, said a group of local divers will begin their search for the plane as soon as Saturday afternoon.
Bahhur also said teams will search Lake Erie by water during the recovery phase.
John T. Fleming, CEO at Superior Beverage Group in Columbus, was flying the plane. The plane was also registered to Fleming, who is a Dublin resident. Aboard the flight with Fleming was his wife, Suzanne, his two teenage sons, Jack and Andrew, a neighbor and a neighbor's daughter, as passengers.
Recovery efforts were postponed until Sunday morning due to weather conditions, according to the mayor's office. Three vessels will go back out into Lake Erie using sonar technology to search for the missing plane and the six people.
Capt. Joseph Dufresne, of the Coast Guard, said the Coast Guard covered more than 1,400 square miles on Lake Erie by air, water and along the lakeshore.
"I speak for every Coast Guard Member stationed here in Cleveland, at our command center in Buffalo and all the men and women assigned to Coast Guard sector Buffalo, when I say our hearts grieve with the families and friends of those that were lost in this tragedy," he said.
During the recovery mission, the city of Cleveland will partner with the Coast Guard, FAA Flight Standards Office, NTSB, Cleveland Department of Public Safety, the Cuyahoga County Port Authority and others during the recovery mission.
A command center and joint information center will be located at Burke Lakefront Airport during the recovery mission.
Bahhur said both families of those on board Cessna Citation 525 have been notified.
"It's extremely difficult," Bahhur said. "It's our aviation family so we take it very seriously and it's affected everybody."
The U.S. Coast Guard and Cleveland officials made the recovery plans in a Saturday morning news release.
Watch it below:
