At least 12 people, including a popular musician, died on Monday when a small plane crashed quickly in the Caribbean Sea after taking off from Hondurane Island in Roatan, officials said. The Lanhsa Airlines plane left at dusk from Roatan, one of the main tourist destinations in the country of Central America, headed for the port of Ceiba on the Hondurian continent.
The plane “made a lively turn to the right of the track and fell into the water,” said Carlos Padilla, head of civil aviation.
“The plane almost fell on us. I was fishing,” a fisherman said, whose name was not given, to HCH Television.
The fire service said 12 people had been killed in the accident while five others were rescued.
Policia Nacional of Honduras / Handout via Reuters
Dramatic video Published social media by the national police have shown that rescuers carrying a survivor on a stretcher on the rocky shore. Another video Showed a similar scene, the police reporting that one body was always missing while the rescue teams continued their research.
The Hondurian musician Aurelio Martinez, a popular member of the Garifuna music scene, was one of the dead local media. According to the Kennedy CenterMartinez founded The Lita Ariran Ensemble, one of the first Garifuna groups to appear on an album distributed internationally.
“Martinez’s virtuoso musicality and passionate performances made him a pillar of the Cieba music scene, where he was most liked for his point of view on Punta Rock, the pop genus of High Energy Garifuna Roots which stormed the 1990s”, according to the Kennedy Center.
Mathew Imaging via Getty 
Among the injured passengers, there was a 40 -year -old French citizen who was transferred to a hospital in the city of San Pedro Sula on the continent, said Major Wilmer Guerrero of the fire service.
Fifteen passengers were on the plane, as well as two pilots and a on -board agent, according to the police.
The accident, which occurred approximately half a million in the island coast, was caused by an “apparent mechanical failure” on the British Jetsstream 41, the police press release said.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro says she had “immediately activated” an emergency committee made up of the armed forces, firefighters and others to help the victims of the accident.
