Panama finds 3 bodies, 1 survivor in crash of plane carrying US citizens
Associated Press | Dec 26, 07 12:00 AM CST
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.
Michael Klein, 37, Talia Klein, 13, and pilot Edwin Lasso, 23, were found dead in an uninhabited region known as Las Ovejas, 430 kilometers (270 miles) west of the capital, Panama's civil protection agency said in a statement.
The civil aviation authority said in a separate statement that the wreckage was found on the slope of the Baru volcano, at an altitude of some 3,500 feet (1,070 meters).
Francesca Lewis, a friend of Talia's who was traveling with the Kleins, survived and was hospitalized with hypothermia and multiple traumas, the civil protection agency said. The severity of her injuries was not immediately clear.
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, California, on Monday, she told the AP from Boquete, Panama, earlier Tuesday.
But their plane disappeared after departing Sunday morning from Islas Secas off Panama's Pacific coast, heading for the Chiriqui volcano, about 285 miles (460 kilometers) west of the capital.
Kim Klein traveled to Panama Monday morning and spoke with authorities about the possible whereabouts of the aircraft. She had offered US$25,000 (17,400) to anyone who could locate it.
Michael Klein, the chief executive officer of Pacificor LLC, a Santa Barbara-based company that manages several hedge funds, founded two companies in the 1990s before becoming president and CEO of eGroups Inc., which was the world's largest group e-mail communication service.
Yahoo Inc. purchased eGroups for US$450 million (310 million) in August 2000 and it is now known as Yahoo Groups.
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Associated Press writers Greg Risling in Los Angeles and Jessica Bernstein-Wax in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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