Twelve people including a popular musician have been killed after a plane crashed into the Caribbean Sea shortly after taking off from Honduras.
Tributes have been paid to Aurelio Martínez, a congressman and Garifuna singer who was among the victims of the tragic incident on Monday.
The plane had taken off from the island of Roatan but made “a sharp turn to the right of the runway and fell into the water,” civil aviation official Carlos Padilla said, according to CBS.
Five people were rescued from the crash, the fire department said, after emergency responders waded through the water to pull survivors from the wreckage.
Martínez’s record label confirmed he was among those killed.
“Aurelio was more than just a musician — he was a statesman, a spokesperson and vital saviour of the culture of the Garifuna people of Honduras,” Real World Records said in a statement.
The music label said Martínez began performing when he was just a boy and became an “innovative artist”, before joining the Honduran national assembly as one of the first congressmen of African descent.
There were 15 passengers and two crew aboard the small Jetstream 32 plane, the New York Times reports.
Fishermen were among the first on the scene, according to local media reports, spotting bodies and survivors in the water before going to the rescue of some of the people crying out for help.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro said she activated an emergency taskforce to respond to the crash, which included the Honduran fire department, the army, national police and the Red Cross.
“They have immediately arrived at the scene of the plane crash that occurred 1 km from Roatán International Airport and are tirelessly assisting in the unfortunate incident,” she wrote in a translated post on X.
“The public hospitals in San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba are now ready to treat injured passengers.
“May God protect people’s lives.”
