FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Loved ones of 36-year-old Ali Tufo say she and her boyfriend Tommy Campana haven’t been seen since Sunday.
“She doesn’t just go off the grid for days at a time,” said Samantha Tufo, Ali’s cousin. “I’m trying to be optimistic, but I’m thinking the worst.”
The couple took off in Campana’s small single engine plane from Fort Lauderdale, heading to the Florida Keys, but they never made it.
The U.S. Coast Guard believes their plane came down somewhere near Big Pine Key, about 15 miles offshore, where teams have been searching.
“Apparently there was another person that they were following in a different plane and that person flying the plane said, ‘There’s bad weather, I’m going to turn around,’” Tufo said. “I don’t know what happened with my cousin’s plane.”
The couple was in a single engine Vans RV-12.
The Federal Aviation Administration told Local 10 News Wednesday night that they alerted local authorities at 1:16 p.m. Tuesday that the single-engine plane was missing, that the aircraft departed from Fort Lauderdale with a possible destination of Key West and that two people were reportedly on board.
Tufo said she wants answers.
“Why are we hearing from the FAA today if it was on Sunday?” she asked. “And I don’t understand. Did he go down that fast that he couldn’t report it?” As of right now, what we know is our cousin’s plane crashed and she’s somewhere in the water.”