News report revealed on Monday that the family of Dr. Mitchell Weiss, a vascular and interventional radiologist, and his wife, Dr. Leslie Weiss, a pediatrician, with their two children, from Florida, had also been on board the plane that crashed in Costa Rica on Sunday.
Thomas J Dillow, a school headmaster’s assistant from St. Petersburg, on Monday tweeted: “Our @Shorecrest community grieves for the loss of the Weiss family; Ari, Hannah, and their parents Mitch and Leslie. We are so fortunate to have had the time we did with such remarkable people. Please pray for their extended family.”
According to government reports, a small charter aircraft carrying 10 American tourists, including Bruce and Irene Steinberg of Scarsdsale, NY, and their three children, and the Weiss family with its two children, as well as two local crew members, crashed and burned midday Sunday in Guanacaste, on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. No one survived.
The tenth American on board was an employee of Back-Roads Touring, Amanda Geissler.
Enio Cubillo, director of Costa Rica Civil Aviation, identified the pilot, Juan Manuel Retana, and his co-pilot, Emma Ramos.
The Costa Rican airline Nature Air has not responded to media contacts. The airline boasts being “the world’s first carbon neutral airline,” claiming that “since 2004, Nature Air has been the first airline to compensate for 100% of its carbon emissions from flight operations through the conservation of tropical forests.”
The Nature Air plane crashed in a wooded area and erupted in flames.
