A plane carrying 10 U.S. citizens and two local crewmembers crashed in a wooded area, killing all aboard Sunday yesterday, Costa Rica’s government said.
The Public Safety Ministry posted photographs and video of the crash site showing burning wreckage of the plane in Guanacaste, northwest Costa Rica.
Authorities said Sunday evening that so far they had only a list of passengers provided by the airline and were awaiting official confirmation of their identities.
A family in the suburbs of New York City said five of the dead Americans were relatives on vacation. They identified them as Bruce and Irene Steinberg and their sons Matthew, William and Zachary, all of Scarsdale.
“We are in utter shock and disbelief right now,” Bruce Steinberg’s sister, Tamara Steinberg Jacobson, wrote on Facebook. She also confirmed the deaths in an interview with NBC News.
Rabbi Jonathan Blake, of the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, said the Steinbergs were involved in philanthropy and local Jewish groups. “They will be deeply missed,” he told the New York Post.
At a news conference, Enio Cubillo, director of Costa Rica Civil Aviation, said the Nature Air charter flight took off just after noon Sunday from Punta Islita and was headed for the capital of San Jose when it crashed
Cubillo said the cause was under investigation.
He identified the pilot as Juan Manuel Retana and described him as very experienced. Former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, who served from 2010 to 2014, said via Twitter that Retana was her cousin.
Nature Air did not respond to phone and email messages.
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