At least 12 people have been killed after a small plane plunged into the Caribbean Sea.
The crash took place minutes the mainland-bound Jetstream aircraft took off from the Honduran island of Roatan on Monday night.
The plane, operated by Honduran airline Lanhsa was carrying 14 passengers and three crew members, according to the country’s transport minister, who said the wreckage was found about 0.6 miles off the island’s coast.
Rescued
A dozen people were killed and five more were rescued after an ‘apparent mechanical failure’ sent the plane spiraling into the sea, CBS reports.
Civil aviation official Carlos Padilla described how the aircraft took off and ‘made a sharp turn to the right of the runway and fell into the water’.
A fisherman below told HCH television he narrowly avoided being struck.
‘The plane almost fell on us. I was fishing,’ he explained.
Among those killed was popular Honduran musician and politician Aurelio Martinez, local media reports.
Martinez was a renowned figure in the Garifuna music scene, the Afro-indigenous community from St Vincent who were exiled to Honduras in the 18th century.
His group Lita Ariran was, ‘one of the first Garifuna groups to appear on an internationally distributed recording,’ according to the Kennedy Center.
Zero visibility
He later went into politics and was selected as a representative to the Honduran National Congress.
Honduran police confirmed that the body of at least one crew member had been recovered.
Dramatic footage showed rescue workers frantically working in the water.
As of Monday night, officials said there was only one body left to recover.
‘It’s been difficult to access the accident (site) because there are 30 meters (98 ft) of rocks and you can’t get there while walking or swimming,’ Roatan Fire captain Franklin Borjas explained.
‘The divers helping with the rescue have zero visibility.’
Honduran President Xiomara Castro put out a statement shortly after the news broke saying she has ‘immediately activated’ an Emergency Operations Committee comprised of several agencies.
According to the flight manifest shown by local media, the passengers included a US national, a French national and two minors.
CBS reports that the 40-year-old French citizen was among the injured who was transferred to a hospital in the city of San Pedro Sula on the mainland.
Roatan, the largest of the Bay Islands just off the Honduran coast, is a popular tourist attraction and famed for its vibrant coral reefs.
DailyMail.com has contacted the US Department of State for comment.
