Nine people were killed on Wednesday after a private aircraft crashed while making an emergency landing at Las Americas Airport in the Dominican Republic’s capital Santo Domingo, according to the plane’s operator, Helidosa Aviation Group.
Seven passengers and two crew members died in the incident, it said in a statement posted to Twitter. Six were foreign nationals and one was Dominican, it also said, without specifying the nationalities of the other six passengers.
Among the victims was Puerto Rican music producer Jose A. Hernandez, better known as “Flow La Movie,” as well as his wife and their child, according to his publicist.
His death sparked messages of condolences and commemoration from a number of Puerto Rican and other Latin artists, including superstar J Balvin and famed pop singer Ricardo Montaner.
https://twitter.com/FrancescComito/status/1471371416884887554
The flight was en route to Florida from La Isabela International Airport in the Dominican Republic when it made the emergency landing and crashed just 15 minutes after takeoff.
The long range Gulfstream GIVSP jet was headed to Miami, Helidosa said.
The cause of the crash or the emergency landing is not yet known.