Lake Erie Plane Victims Update: Bag Found In Search For Missing Cessna That Disappeared After Cleveland Cavaliers Game

Cleveland police confirmed Monday that a bag that washed up on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio belonged to a passenger onboard the flight that disappeared late last week, Cleveland.com reported. Officials have been searching for the plane since it went missing while carrying six passengers who were coming home after attending a Cleveland Cavaliers NBA game Thursday night.

Search parties planned on using seven boats to try and track down the plane and had separated a 2-by-2.5-mile search area into a grid. The water in those locations is between 35 to 45 feet deep, media outlets reported.

“We want to remind everyone that this is an active investigation,” Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said Monday, according to a city blog post. “If you see something that could be debris from the plane, we are asking people to avoid touching it and to call the [Cleveland] Division of Police immediately.”

The plane was headed to Columbus before it disappeared from radar and communications. The six people aboard the flight included an Ohio beverage distributor executive and his family as well as two neighbors. There were three adults and three children on the plane, reports indicated.

The plane disappeared just after 11:30 p.m. local time Thursday.

The beverage executive, John T. Fleming, was at the controls of the plane, a twin-engine Cessna Citation 525, when it disappeared, Fleming’s father said. Fleming was an experienced pilot who was taking his wife, two sons, neighbor and her daughter on a holiday trip. It was not immediately clear what happened to the plane. Investigators were still trying to piece together the last communications from the flight on Monday.

The search has been conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard and its Canadian counterpart. Recovery crews from the Akron fire department, New York State Police, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Toledo Fire Department and Cleveland Metroparks were also expected to provide assistance.