 On September 26 , the Hurricane Hunter P2V @-@ <unk> Neptune aircraft Snowcloud Five , led by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Grover B. Windham , was sent from Guantánamo Bay to investigate Janet , which was at the time a Category 4 hurricane south of Jamaica . Upon penetration of the hurricane 's eyewall at an altitude of 700 ft ( 200 m ) , a final transmission was received from the reconnaissance flight before it presumably crashed in the Caribbean Sea . All 11 people on board , including nine crew members and two journalists , were killed . Following the loss of the plane , an extensive search and rescue operation took place over a large area of the Caribbean Sea , with 3 @,@ 000 personnel involved with the search , returning no results . The exact cause of the crash remains unknown , though it is speculated that the plane 's altimeter gave an incorrect reading due to the low surrounding barometric pressure . Although four hurricane reconnaissance flights have been lost since operations began in 1943 , Snowcloud Five remains the only known loss of a reconnaissance aircraft as a result of a hurricane in the Atlantic basin , with the other three occurring as a result of Pacific typhoons . 
