The accident of a small plane that occurred this Monday on a mountain in the center of Costa Rica It left five dead and one injured in critical condition, the local Red Cross reported.
The aircraft Cessna 206 Stationer crashed in a mountainous area of the province of San José, known as White Peakbetween the towns of Escazú and Santa Ana, when it lost communication and disappeared from the radar around 12:30 local time (18:30 GMT).
The rescue forces, who faced adverse weather conditionsas rain and strong winds, reached the wreckage of the aircraft at 9:00 p.m. local time (03:00 GMT on Tuesday).
At the scene, they found five people without vital signs already one 31-year-old woman alive but in critical condition. The Red Cross detailed that the survivor, identified as Paola Amador Segura, She was taken to a hospital in serious condition.
“It is on the pure peak of the mountain. For 50 feet he didn’t jump it”, with those words, a pilot alerted the control tower that the missing plane had been located. In an audio shared by the authorities, it is described that the aircraft is shrouded in “very thick fog” and that “you can barely see the red spot stuck there in the jungle.”
“The plane is quite whole, what I could see the tail is whole (…) I hope they can enter as soon as possible. “It doesn’t look torn apart, it looks whole, there is no fire,” he said. the pilot Everardo Carmonaof the Green Airways company, who made the flight that allowed the accident site to be seen.
The authorities of the General Directorate of Civil Aviation They identified the fatal victims as Mario Miranda40-year-old pilot; Ruth Mora27 years old; Jean Franco Segura28 years old; Gabriela Calleja64 years old; and Enrique Castillo56 years old. All the occupants of the aircraft were Costa Rican and were dedicated to work related to tourism companies, according to local media.
Two of the occupants died inside the aircraft, being trapped between the fuselage, while the other three bodies were found outside the aircraft.
During the rescue operation, it was discovered that the emergency locator transmitter (ELT), which made it difficult to initially locate the aircraft.
The ELT is designed to emit a radio signal on the 121.5 MHz and 406 MHz frequencies when activated upon impact, typically allowing rapid location of the aircraft. However, the device was not activated due to the magnitude of the impact, which delayed the search.
The deputy director of Civil Aviation, Luis Miranda, explained that the lack of ELT signal complicated the first minutes of the search operation. This transmitter emits signals that are captured by other aircraft on the same frequency or by satellites of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States, which complete their orbit every 100 minutes.
The accident occurred while the plane was heading towards the Juan Santamaría airporton the outskirts of San José, from Tortugueroin the province of Limón, on the Caribbean coast of the country.
Due to bad weather, the aircraft had to land in the Tobias Bolaños airportbut it deviated towards the Juan Santamaría.
A reconnaissance flight carried out by Air Surveillance of the Ministry of Security He was unable to locate the aircraft, but a private plane spotted the red fuselage of the plane at the top of Pico Blanco.
Civil aviation authorities are investigating the causes of the accident, while rescue teams continue working in the area to recover the bodies and treat the survivor.
(With information from EFE)
