On Monday, September 7, a private plane carrying Mario and Lili Lamar, along with their grandchildren Sofia and Christian Sosa, vanished while returning from the Bahamas to Florida. The disappearance has raised concerns among family members and authorities as search efforts begin to locate the aircraft and its occupants.
The six-seater PA-34 Piper aircraft was headed to Opa-locka, Florida, and had taken off from Great Harbor Cay, when it fell to the water 13 miles west of Andros Island at 2:20pm, as per the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
The family, in a statement to ABC News, said that Mario is “an experienced pilot with more than 40 years of flying experience. As per FlightAware data, the Piper PA-34 Seneca was last seen on radar around 11am. Then, there was an altitude drop from 10,000 feet to 3,700 feet in just three minutes.
The current whereabouts of the Lamars and Sosas remain unknown. A joint search operation involving the U.S. Coast Guard and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force is underway to locate the Florida family. It showed the plane’s speed was rapidly shifting up and down. The plane’s path also looped in a circle, after which further data became unavailable.
Sofia had last sent a text on the family group letting them know they were flying home, before the crash.
