A small passenger plane crashed seconds after taking off from a Caribbean island near mainland Honduras on Monday, killing all but five of the 17 people on board, the authorities said.
The Jetstream 32 aircraft was carrying 15 passengers and two crew members when it departed Monday evening from an airport on Roatán Island, the civil aeronautics agency of Honduras said in a statement. The flight’s destination was La Ceiba, a nearby city on the country’s northern coast, the agency said.
The national police later said on social media that 12 people aboard had died and five had survived. It said that the body of one of those killed was still missing, and that recovery efforts continued at the crash site.
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear on Tuesday morning. The civil aeronautics agency said that an investigation had begun.
Roatán Island, about 35 miles from the Honduran mainland, is the largest of the Bay Islands and a popular Caribbean destination for divers seeking pristine coral reefs.
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