BERLIN — Authorities in Latvia said Monday that a search and rescue operation has so far found no sign of survivors from a small plane that crashed in the Baltic Sea.
Air traffic controllers lost contact with the private plane, carrying four people, shortly after it took off from the Spanish city of Jerez on Sunday afternoon.
Several European countries scrambled fighter jets as the plane made its way across the continent but were unable to see or contact anyone in the cockpit, German tabloid Bild reported.
The Cologne-based dailies Express and Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger reported that the Cessna Citation 551 jet, was en route to the western city with a prominent local businessman, his wife, daughter and her boyfriend on board.
Peteris Subbota, chief of the Latvian military’s Marine Search and Rescue Coordination Centre, told Latvian Radio on Monday that one piece of the plane had been found on the sea.
However, rescuers hadn’t so far found any survivors or located the bodies of the victims. A Latvian coast guard ship would continue the search at the crash site throughout Monday with help from rescue helicopters from Sweden and Baltic neighbor Lithuania, Subbota said.
