Nichter set off from St. Petersburg in a single-engine plane on December 15, 2009. His intended destination is unknown. At the time of his last radio contact, he was flying at 9,900 feet over the Gulf of Mexico, about 140 miles southwest of St. Petersburg. He lost radio communications at 4:00 p.m. and has never been heard from again. An extensive Coast Guard search turned up no sign of him, and the search was called off after two days.

Nichter graduated from the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. He had been working in the pediatric intensive care program at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg for about twenty years prior to his disappearance. He is presumed to have crashed his plane into the ocean.