Pieces of Missing Florida Plane Found; Couple on Way to Key West Still Missing

It has been four days since a small, single-engine aircraft went missing with two people onboard.

Lana Tufo, 34, said her family needs answers about what happened to her sister, Ali Tufo, 36, and her boyfriend, Tommy Campana, 37, who lives in Fort Lauderdale and had a hobby for flying.

The Federal Aviation Administration said they told local officials at 1:16 p.m. Tuesday that the Vans RV-12 had gone missing on its way to Key West. The U.S. Coast Guard is now searching.

Officials found one wing and the tail of the plane Thursday evening in the Coast Guard’s search area, about 10 to 15 miles offshore from Big Pine Key, Tufo said.

The couple left from Palm Beach County Park Airport, according to the FAA. The airport has no air traffic control tower. The FAA said no flight plan was filed, and no air traffic services were provided.

Rescue crews spotted an oil sheen in the search area, about nine miles north-northwest of Big Pine Key, a spokesperson for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.

“I range from crying to being angry to just kind of being numb and not believing it’s real,” Tufo said.

Her sister and Campana set out from an airport in Palm Beach County for a short trip to Key West Sunday morning about 9:30 a.m., Tufo said. By 9:59 a.m., the plane’s radar showed it was 1,100 feet above the water 15 miles off of Big Pine Key.

Moments later, the plane was just a few hundred feet above the water, Tufo said. Then the radar picked up nothing.

“So that means they were in a rapid descent,” she said. “A smaller, single-engine plane like that, even if the engine gave out, they’re able to glide. So we don’t know what would have happened that would have caused the plane to go down rapidly like that.”

Tufo said the plane’s tail and wing were found near where the radar last pinged.

The Coast Guard said in a tweet Thursday that “watchstanders determined a possible downed aircraft” may be about 15 miles north of Big Pine Key, which is about 30 miles north of Key West.

Ali Tufo didn’t show up for work Tuesday. A boss noted that was out of the ordinary for the employee of nearly 8 years, her sister said. That’s when a work friend of Ali Tufo’s said she knew the couple had set out for Key West, and the Coast Guard was alerted.

Tufo said an acquaintance of Campana’s was flying behind Campana on Sunday morning, intending to join the couple for the day on their trip. But he reported on his radio that he turned around and went back north to land in Marathon because of poor weather.

That same acquaintance had recently been in Campana’s plane with him and noticed the emergency locator transmitter was malfunctioning, Tufo said she learned from the Coast Guard.

Tufo said Coast Guard officials told her Thursday that life vests were found at Campana’s hanger at the airport the couple left from. That, Tufo said, was “devastating news to hear.”

“We don’t know if that means they didn’t have any on the plane. If that means they didn’t have life vests on board, that’s kind of horrifying,” Tufo said.

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office sent divers to the search area Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson for the department said. Now, Ali Tufo’s family is enduring a painful “waiting game,” her sister said.

Tufo is left with many questions. Could her sister and Campana have survived the impact of a crash? Could they have swam to shore if it was 15 miles away? And why wasn’t the plane reported missing until Tuesday, four days later?

“We just kind of want answers, you know,” she said.

According to FlightAware, the flight history and tracking for the 2020 Vans aircraft registered to Campana are not available, at the request of the owner.

Her sister had shared with Tufo that she was wary of flying in a small plane. But in the last few months, she mustered up the courage to fly with Campana on a practice flight, Tufo said. She was proud of herself.

“I think this was their first time ever going on a trip like that,” Tufo said. “They’d only been on practice flights.”

Tufo said Campana had been flying for about a year and got a license to operate a plane by himself, without a secondary pilot, in January.

A relative of Campana declined to speak when reached by phone Thursday.

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