Honduras plane crash: death toll rises to 13
Handout picture released by Honduran Police shows rescue teams carrying an injured man out of the water after a plane crash in Roatan, Honduras on March 17, 2025. Agence France-Presse
TEGUCIGALPA — Thirteen people died when a small plane plunged into the sea while taking off from a Honduran resort island, authorities said Tuesday after recovering the body of the last missing victim.
The Lanhsa Airlines plane with 18 people on board departed on Monday evening from Roatan, one of the central American country’s main tourist destinations, heading for the mainland.
The British-made Jetstream 32 turboprop aircraft, carrying 15 passengers, two pilots and a flight attendant, lost engine power and crashed into the sea around one kilometer (0.6 miles) offshore, police said.
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Transport Minister Octavio Pineda said authorities suspected mechanical failure.
“The plane almost fell on us. I was fishing,” a fisherman, whose name was not given, told HCH television.
All of those killed were Hondurans, the fire department said.
The 13th victim was a woman traveling with her husband, who survived and was in hospital, police said, adding that civilian vessels had helped to recover her body.
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Five people were pulled alive from the sea.
“After takeoff, there was a gust of wind and the plane immediately came down,” passenger Jairo Vargas, who suffered a fractured shinbone and minor head trauma, told local media.
The injured passengers included a 40-year-old French citizen who was taken to hospital on the mainland, Major Wilmer Guerrero of the fire department said.
Aurelio Martinez, a popular member of the local Afro-Honduran music scene, was among the dead, according to the singer-songwriter’s family.
Operations at Roatan International Airport remained suspended in accordance with the emergency protocol, although the island “is extremely important for the country’s tourism,” Pineda said.
