Icelandic rescue services and an RAF Nimrod search-and-rescue aircraft were looking Friday for a what they believed to be an American pilot presumed to have crashed at sea during a storm while flying from Reykjavik, Iceland, to Wick, Scotland. The pilot had contacted Iceland air traffic control to report severe icing and said he would attempt ditching. Less than 20 minutes prior to that, at 11:22 GMT, he had reported flying at 9,000 feet. He was “known to be in a survival suit but it was not clear whether he also had a dinghy,” according to the BBC online, which reported weather as severe, “with heavy thunderstorms and a 20-foot swell. Search efforts include flights 450 miles from the Moray coast in the area of a distress beacon transmitted from the scene, until the aircraft sank.
