The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

THE LAST contact from Forrest Sanco, the American man who vanished with his wife while en route to Rum Cay for their honeymoon last month, was a signal to air traffic controllers that he was nearing his destination.

Mr Sanco officially closed his flight plan at 4:58pm on September 26.

It’s a piece of information that investigators hope will help to narrow the gap before the couple were officially reported as missing, according to Bahamas Air and Sea Rescue Association (BASRA) Operations Manager Chris Lloyd yesterday.

Moreover, according to Mr Lloyd, there were no “local reports or concerns raised” about the missing couple until Friday, October 6 – roughly 10 days after the couple was originally scheduled to turn up for their Rum Cay honeymoon.

A family member now trying to raise $10,000 through a Go Fund Me campaign to hire private crews and pilots to find the Argyle, Texas couple on Monday told the Tribune the pair travelled from Florida on board a Cessna 150-N3214X en route to the Bahamas on September 25.

LeeAnn Burger, 23, said her uncle and his wife Donna, claimed the pair landed in Grand Bahama on the same day, where they cleared customs and spent the night.

Ms Burger said the couple reportedly left Grand Bahama en route to Rum Cay on September 26 where they had rented a home for the week.

However, she said, the pair never arrived, with last contact coming in North Eleuthera where the couple had stopped for fuel.

To help in the search for the couple a gofundme site was launched in the US which has already raised more than $9000 to help pay for a search aircraft which is believed to have been hired in San Salvador.

Mr Lloyd said his office were not made aware of the case until last Friday, when it received a request for assistance from the United States Embassy’s office here in the Bahamas.

The Tribune understands that it was at this time reports of the missing couple were disseminated to the United States Coast Guard and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF).

Mr Lloyd said a caretaker on Rum Cay was awaiting a “fly by” to meet the couple at the airstrip, but the couple never showed.

“There is a lot of pieces that need to be put together,” Mr Lloyd told the Tribune. “Pieces that need to be placed in the precise order to make some sense here.”

He added: “What we are sure of at this moment is that the couple left Florida, arrived in Freeport, left there, stopped in Eleuthera for fuel then continued on to Rum Cay.”

“At 4:58pm, we know that he closed his flight plan which gives us the understanding that he was near Rum Cay and in a position to say his flight was a success up to that point.”

“Now everything beyond that is questionable and we have a wide window of time to work through and narrow-down. From September 26 to October 6 is a long time to have to verify,” he concluded.

The Sanco couple were renting a holiday home from Pat and Earl Lambert. Their son Greg, who had dealt directly with Forrest Sanco, indicated that he advised the newly wed husband on how to charter or fly to Rum Cay.

Mr Sanco admitted to Greg that he hadn’t “flown for a number of years”, but it is understood he took some retraining lessons before making the flight from the US.