Ten US citizens were among the 12 victims of a small plane crash in northwest Costa Rica Sunday afternoon, Costa Rica’s President said.
The victims from New York were identified as Irene and Bruce Steinberg and their children Matthew, William and Zachary, from Scarsdale, New York. They are said to be the pillar of their community and pro-Israeli Zionists.
Mitchell, Leslie and Hannah Weiss, Amanda Geissler and Gene Szeto were also killed in the crash.
“The government of Costa Rica deeply regrets the death of 10 American passengers and two Costa Rican pilots,” President Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera said in a statement posted on social media.
An investigation into the cause of the crash will begin first thing Monday, Solis said. Everyone on board the aircraft was killed.
Costa Rica’s Ministry of Public Security posted several images of the wreckage on its official Facebook page, showing the plane engulfed in flames in a wooded area, with smoke billowing from charred rubble.
The private aircraft was carrying 10 foreign passengers and two Costa Rican crew members, the ministry said.
The crash occurred near Punta Islita, in Costa Rica’s Guanacaste province, officials said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash. Authorities said they were traveling to the area to recover the victims’ bodies.
One of the victims was the cousin of Costa Rican ex-President Laura Chinchilla, the former leader said on her Twitter account.
