PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Six people, including two Americans missionaries, were killed when a private airplane crashed south of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, local authorities said.
The aircraft had taken off from the city’s airport at 6:57 pm (2257 GMT) on Friday and should have arrived at Jacmel, on Haiti’s southern coast, around an hour later, according to the National Civil Aviation Office (NCAO) on Saturday.
“The plane crashed en route with six people on board,” an NCAO incident report said.
Gutenberg Destin, the coordinator of civil protection for Haiti’s Ouest Department, confirmed that all six people on board had perished.
The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately clear.
With heavily armed gangs controlling the main land route from Port-au-Prince to the southern half of Haiti, charter flights to Jacmel have become increasingly popular — among the tiny number of Haitians able to afford them.
The U.S.-based organization Gospel to Haiti posted an announcement on its Facebook page that two of its group members, American citizens Trent Hostelter, 35, and John Miller, 43, were killed in the crash.
The identities of the other four passengers were not immediately released by officials.
Hostelter’s wife and three children had taken an earlier flight on a small plane. Because there wasn’t enough room on the flight, he stayed behind with Miller to catch the next plane, the group said.
“When the second plane didn’t show up, they were very concerned and soon heard that the plane had gone down somewhere near Leogane. A search team was formed and sent out and they located the plane early this morning and confirmed that all 6 people were killed,” the group’s Facebook post said.
Gospel to Haiti said the group had decided to take a small private plane due to the “unrest” in Port-au-Prince, where violence has spiked in recent weeks as rival groups battle with one another or the police for control of the streets, displacing thousands and worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis. — NNN-AGENCIES
