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The Lanhsa Airlines flight crashed into the sea shortly after
takeoff Monday night from the island of Roatan en route to the
mainland city of La Ceiba.
It carried 17 passengers and crew, five of whom were rescued and
hospitalized.
Police reported that the plane failed to reach full altitude and
sank quickly after impact. Local fishermen rescued the
survivors.
The Honduran Civil Aeronautics Agency said the crash is under
investigation.
Among the victims was Aurelio Martínez Suazo, a former member of
Congress and member of the Garifuna ethnic group, which is of
mixed African and Indigenous heritage. Martínez Suazo also held
U.S. citizenship. His representative, Helene Odile Guivarch, a
French citizen, was among the survivors.
Martínez Suazo was originally from Honduras’ Gracias a Dios
region along the country’s Caribbean coast.
“We’re devastated,” his nephew Ángel Aparicio Fernández Martínez,
also a musician who played with his uncle, said Tuesday. “He was
the family’s pillar.”
Martínez Suazo was a member of Los Gatos Bravos before forming
his own group Lita Ariran. His first album “Garifuna Soul” took
him to Europe, the United States and other parts of the world.
“He was the greatest model from Honduras of Garifuna music on a
worldwide stage,” his nephew said.
Humberto Castillo, president of the Association of
Afro-descendants of the Sula Valley, called Martínez Suazo “the
ambassador of Garifuna culture,” noting that he spoke Garifuna
and Miskito and composed music in both languages.
The victims bodies were taken from Roatan to the morgue in San
Pedro Sula.
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