Private jet carrying 5 Germans disappears near Costa Rica: Reports
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A private aircraft reportedly carrying German fitness entrepreneur Rainer Schaller has disappeared off the coast of Costa Rica.
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The private jet went missing on Friday evening
A private jet carrying five German citizens on board has disappeared Friday evening off the Costa Rica coast after it departed from Mexico, Costa Rican Public Security Minister Jorge Torres said on Saturday.
"At about 6 p.m. (00:00 GMT), we received a message about the (disappearance) of a private plane en route from Mexico to the airport of the city of Limon. There were five passengers of German nationality on board. The plane lost contact with the control tower while flying over the Parismina area in the Costa Rican basin of the Caribbean," the Public Security Minisyer said in a video statement published by Costa Rican news website Observador.
After losing contact with the jet, Torres added, authorities activated an emergency protocol with the participation of the air surveillance service and the Coast Guard. However, the search mission was suspended due to bad weather conditions, and it will resume at 5 am local time on Saturday.
While the pilot and passengers' identities have not been disclosed at first, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported that one of the passengers is Rainer Schaller, the CEO of McFit, the largest fitness club chain in Germany. The newspaper added that he was with his partner Christiane Schikorsky, their two children, and a man called Marcus Kurreck.
It is worth noting that Schaller was the owner of the company Lopavent that ran the electronic dance music festival Love Parade, during which 21 people died in a stampede in 2010 in the German city of Duisburg, and more than 500 others required hospitalization. The tragedy that happened 12 years ago caused Schaller to cancel the festival permanently.
