2 Americans, pilot dead in Panama plane crash
PANAMA CITY, Panama – The bodies of a California businessman, his teenage daughter and the Panamanian pilot of a plane that crashed over the weekend were found Tuesday in Panama’s mountains, officials said. A 12-year-old American girl survived.
But she suffered multiple traumas and hypothermia, and cold, wet weather prevented authorities from evacuating her immediately from the crash site on the slope of a remote volcano.
Michael Klein, 37, Talia Klein, 13, and pilot Edwin Lasso, 23, were found dead in an uninhabited region of Panama known as Las Ovejas, about 270 miles west of the capital, the civil protection agency said.
The wreckage was located at a hard-to-reach site on the Baru volcano, at an altitude of some 3,500 feet, the civil aviation authority said in a separate statement.
Rescuers were giving medical attention to Francesca Lewis – a friend of Talia’s who was traveling with the Kleins – in a makeshift shelter, said prosecutor Jose Henriquez, who is handling the case.
Aviation authorities said the cause of the crash was not yet known, but RPC radio reported that witnesses saw the plane flying at a very low altitude around noon Sunday amid buffeting winds.
Klein, a 37-year-old hedge fund manager, was on vacation with the two girls at an eco-resort he owns in the Central American nation, according to Kim Klein, his ex-wife and Talia’s mother. The three had been scheduled to return to Santa Barbara, Calif., on Monday, she said.
But their plane disappeared after departing Sunday morning from Islas Secas off Panama’s Pacific coast, heading for the Chiriqui volcano, about 285 miles west of the capital.
Rescue workers and volunteers combed a mountainous area of Panama’s western Chiriqui province Monday and Tuesday, but dense tropical foliage, mountainous terrain and heavy rains made air and land searches extremely difficult, said Roberto Rolando Rodriguez, a spokesman for nation’s air security agency.
Kim Klein traveled to Panama Monday morning and spoke with authorities about the possible whereabouts of the aircraft.