A 17-year-old attempting to fly around the world for charity died following the crash of his plane in the Pacific Ocean. The teenager from Indiana was flying the small plane alongside his father.

Haris Suleman and his father Babar Suleman left American Samoa on their way towards Hawaii, according to ABC News. The U.S. Coast Guard notified their family Wednesday morning after six hours of search and rescue operations.

ABC News reports that the Coast Guard has found Haris Suleman's body but has not his father's. The pair had taken off on June 19 in an attempt to raise money for The Citizens Foundation charity, which would be used to build schools in impoverished rural areas of Pakistan. They had managed to raise around $500,000 before their crash.

Hiba Suleman, Haris' sister, said at a press conference on Wednesday that her brother and father took off at 9:50 p.m. local time and air traffic control lost contact with their single-engined Beechcraft Bonanza at 10:15 p.m. some 23 miles off American Samoa.

"We don't really know what happened with the plane," she said.

According to the Indianapolis Star, the search continues for Babar Suleman as well as the plane's black box, which will help determine what happened. The family and friends hope that Babar is found alive.

"It is a tragedy of immense proportions," said Azher Khan, a family friend and local president of The Citizens Foundation. "We are all still hopeful that we will have Babar come back."

Officials are investigating the reason for the crash, said the National Transportation Safety Board, since the cause remains unknown. Hiba Suleman said both her father and brother "had taken an open-water survival training course before they began their adventure, wore ocean survival 'Gumby suits' and that her father also wore a locator beacon on his person."

She added that they would not have left with bad weather and does not know why they left at night.