After the mysterious crash of a plane in the Baltic Sea, Latvian rescue workers found a total of eleven fragments of the crashed machine. According to Latvian Navy spokeswoman Liva Veita, ten pieces of wreckage were discovered in the sea on Monday. Another had previously been located on Sunday, she told Latvian news agency Leta. On the other hand, there is still no trace of the occupants.
“Active searches are currently underway to recover the remains of this aircraft and most likely the deceased as well. As soon as this work is completed, an appropriate active investigation into the plane accident will be launched,” Aivis Vincevs from the Latvian Civil Aviation Authority told Latvian Radio.
It is not yet known which country will be responsible for investigating the accident, as the plane crashed into the sea and sank in neutral waters. Ships of the Latvian Navy and the Border Guard are used for search at sea. According to Veita, a drone from the European Maritime Safety Agency was also involved in the search operation. On Tuesday, drones will also be used to search under water.
The private plane flew on Sunday on its way from Spain to Cologne over the Baltic Sea and crashed into the sea off the coast of Latvia in the evening. According to the authorities, four people were on board the Cessna 551.
According to media reports, the plane was flown by Peter Griesemann (72) – honorary president of the Blauen Funken carnival association in Cologne. This is reported by the “Express”. Griesemann was also an entrepreneur and head of the “Griesemann Group”, which also includes a charter company for private jets, the newspaper reports.
There was initially no official information about the inmates. The Cologne police said they were “not involved”. When asked by the AFP news agency, the man’s group of companies said it was not currently making any statements.
According to information from the Austrian news agency APA, the jet was registered in Austria and licensed to a German company. The plane crashed when “it ran out of fuel,” Swedish search and rescue chief Lars Antonsson told AFP. The people on board were “clearly” unable to react.
The “Bild” newspaper reported that the machine reported pressure problems in the cabin after taking off from Jerez in southern Spain. Accordingly, contact with the ground broke off just behind the Iberian Peninsula. In the airspace over France, a unit from the French army initially took over before being replaced by the Bundeswehr.
As a spokesman for the Air Force confirmed to the German Press Agency on Sunday evening, alarm squads consisting of two Eurofighters rose in German airspace to get an idea of ​​the unusual flight behavior. According to media reports, a group from Neuburg an der Donau and later from Rostock-Laage rose first.
As reported by the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, when the Cessna 551 aircraft flew over the island of Rügen, it entered Swedish airspace, where it flew south of Gotland and further towards the Gulf of Riga and then crashed into the sea .
