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 A New York county official said that Larry Glazer, a real-estate
executive from Rochester in New York, and his wife, Jane Glazer,
were aboard the plane. Both were killed, the official said.
It was not yet known if anyone else was on the plane.
Search and rescue teams, including a military plane and a
helicopter, were despatched to the crash site about 14 miles (22 km)
north of the tourist town of Port Antonio, Jamaica's Civil Aviation
Authority said.
The U.S. Coast Guard also joined the search with an HC-130 Hercules
airplane and a helicopter, as well as a Coast Guard Cutter en route.
"At this time we have not located the aircraft or debris," a U.S.
Coast Guard spokesman said late on Friday afternoon.
The pilot stopped responding to radio calls about an hour after
take-off from Greater Rochester International Airport in New York
and was headed to Naples Municipal Airport in Florida, a spokeswoman
for the Federal Aviation Administration said.
 The single-engine, seven-seater plane, a Socata TBM700, flew for
several hours at an altitude of 25,000 feet (7,620 meters)
southbound down the Florida east coast and south over Cuba, the FAA
said.
It was trailed by two F-15 fighter jets, the North American
Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said, before the jets halted their
escort when the plane entered Cuban airspace.
NORAD suggested on its Twitter page that the aircraft's pilot may
have suffered "possible hypoxia," a rare condition caused by a loss
of cabin pressure that may have left everyone on board unconscious.
In 1999, a Learjet carrying golf pro Payne Stewart lost cabin
pressure during a flight from Orlando to Dallas. The aircraft
eventually ran out of fuel and crashed in South Dakota.
CNN reported that the F-15 pilots who were tracking the aircraft
could see the pilot slumped over before the plane's windows frosted
over.
U.S. aviation authorities alerted Cuba to the plane's approach,
requesting permission for the stray plane to enter Cuban airspace,
according to a Cuban government statement late Friday.
Cuba agreed and was willing to allow the U.S. military planes entry
as well, the statement said, adding that its own search and rescue
resources were made available in case they were needed.
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"Throughout the whole time communication was maintained with the
North American authorities who were informed of every measure taken
in relation to this incident," the statement said. The plane was
owned by a company called New 51LG LLC, according to FlightAware.com
and other online flight databases. That company appears to be
registered at the same address as Buckingham Properties in
Rochester, New York, according to registration documents posted on
the Internet.
Calls to the company were not immediately answered.
Larry Glazer co-founded Buckingham Properties in 1970 and was the
company's chief executive officer and managing partner. An online
profile of Glazer said his hobbies included flying his plane.
Several local officials, including at least two state senators,
released statements describing the Glazers as eminent members of the
community in Rochester, a city in Monroe County near Lake Ontario in
western New York.
Maggie Brooks, Monroe County's executive, said Larry Glazer had left
his mark on the Rochester skyline through his firm Buckingham
Properties. Jane Glazer ran a mail-order homeware company called QCI
Direct, Brooks said.
"They were personal friends of mine as well as amazing community
leaders, philanthropists in so many ways, so this truly is a
devastating loss on so many different levels for Rochester," Brooks
said at a news conference on Friday.
(Reporting By David Adams in Miami, Letitia Stein in Tampa, Jonathan
Allen in New York and Daniel Trotta in Havana; Editing by Frances
Kerry, Sandra Maler and Lisa Shumaker)
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