The U.S. Coast Guard ended its search Monday evening for John William Kinsinger, MD, an Oklahoma City-based Integris Baptist Medical Center-affiliated anesthesiologist whose plane disappeared over the Gulf of Mexico last week, NewsOK reports.
Dr. Kinsinger, 55, left Wiley Post Airport in Oklahoma City Jan. 3 to pick up a rescue dog in Georgetown, Texas. Coast Guard officials said Dr. Kinsinger failed to respond to radio communication shortly after the plane took off from the airport. Officials said the plane was last seen on radar roughly 135 miles north of the Yucatan Peninsula, the report states.
Coast Guard officials said pilots who flew alongside Dr. Kinsinger's aircraft in an attempt to establish communication saw the physician slumped over in the cockpit, seemingly unconscious, according to the report.
Officials' search for Dr. Kinsinger and the aircraft covered 20,090 square miles and lasted 79 hours. Authorities speculate the plane went down in an area of the Gulf of Mexico that reaches an estimated 3,900 feet in depth.
More articles on hospital-physician relationships:
Vanderbilt University Medical Center places resident on leave following complaints about social media activism
Google doodle honors 1968 Nobel Prize-winning Indian-American geneticist Jan. 9
Joint Commission re-accredits Hawaii hospital despite patient escape 2 months ag