HUNT STILL ON FOR PLANE HEADED TO A BASE NEAR CAPE CANAVERAL

Staff, wire reports

The Coast Guard continued its search for a State Department plane missing
over the Atlantic since Monday morning.

The cropdusting-type plane disappeared near the Bahamas. The pilot, the
only person on board, worked for 15 years for Dyncorp under contract with
the State Department, said a State Department official.

The plane was bound for Patrick Air Force Base near Cape Canaveral from the
Turks and Caicos Islands when it went missing, officials said. It was
returning for scheduled maintenance from Colombia, where the pilot was
involved in an anti-drug aerial spray program, the official said.

The plane's last known location was about 120 miles southeast of Freeport,
Grand Bahamas, according to a Coast Guard statement.

Chris Lloyd, director of the Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association, said the
pilot told the controllers that he was encountering bad weather and looking
for a place to land. White said he could not confirm Lloyd's report.

The plane's spray pumps were pulled before the aircraft left Colombia, and
tanks were filled with fuel for 12 hours of flying time, said State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

Frederick Jones, another State Department spokesman, said there was "no
reason to believe there was any criminal intent involved" in the disappearance.

"We are treating this matter as a search-and-rescue," he said.

The pilot's family has been notified but officials would not release his name.