McFit founder Rainer Schaller (53) and his girlfriend were traveling with this Piaggio 180 Photo: picture alliance / CHROMORANGE | Markus Mainka
From BZ
Are these the first tracks? When searching for the missing private plane belonging to McFit founder Rainer Schaller (53) off the coast of Costa Rica, the emergency services discovered several pieces of debris in the sea.
About 28 kilometers from the destination airport of Limón, parts of a fuselage, a bag and seats were sighted during a reconnaissance flight, the television station Teletica reported on Saturday, citing the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Security. There was initially no information about the passengers.
“The plane disappeared from radar about 25 miles (approx. 40 km) before Limón airport. The plane was due to land at 6:58 p.m., we lost it at an altitude of 2,000 feet,” Civil Aviation Authority director Fernando Naranjo told Teletica.
The Piaggio P.180 Avanti business jet went missing on Friday evening (local time) on the flight from Mexico to Costa Rica.
The Ministry of Security announced that communication was lost when the machine approached Limón Airport over the sea. After the search was canceled due to bad weather conditions during the night, the emergency services resumed it on Saturday.
On board the 13-year-old machine, as a spokeswoman for the “McFit” operator RSG-Group GmbH confirmed: Schaller, his girlfriend Christiane Schikorsky and their children Aaron and Finja. According to BamS information, a man named Marcus Kurreck is said to have also flown. (rob)