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CatastropheCosta Rica

Two bodies found after plane carrying McFit founder crashed

October 24, 2022

Five Germans, including fitness entrepreneur Rainer Schaller, and a Swiss pilot were onboard when it crashed off the coast of Costa Rica. Wreckage, thought to be from a plane has been recovered.

https://p.dw.com/p/4Ia6M
Personal belongings recovered from Caribbean waters along with pieces of a twin-engine turboprop aircraft that crashed into the Caribbean just off the Costa Rican coast
Searchers also turned up backpacks and bags, and pieces of the plane in Caribbean watersImage: Costa Rica Public Security Ministry Photo/AP/picture alliance

Costa Rican authorities on Sunday found two bodies in the search for people, including McFit founder Rainer Schaller, who was on board a small plane that crashed in the Caribbean.

Schaller and five other people were listed as being on the aircraft that crashed on Friday.

The bodies of one adult and one child had been found in the water, but had not yet been identified the Security Ministry said.

Rescuers also came across pieces of luggage and plane wreckage.

Search and rescue operations continued to focus on a site about 17 miles (28 kilometers) off the coast from the Limon airport on the Caribbean coast of the Central American country.

Public Security Minister Jorge Torres said it appeared the plane hit the water hard.

Plane went down close to its final destination

The small plane went missing on its way from Mexico to Limon airport in the east of Costa Rica on Friday.

German newspaper Bild quoted McFit spokeswoman Jeanine Minaty as saying that Schaller, his partner Christiane Schikorsky and their two children, and another unnamed man were passengers on the plane.

"We don't know any more at the moment," Minaty said.

Rainer Schaller, founder, owner and CEO of the RSG Group
Schaller's RSG Group has 21 fitness, lifestyle and fashion brands that operates in 48 countriesImage: picture alliance / Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa

The plane, a Piaggio P.180 Avanti, went missing on Friday evening some 33 kilometers (about 20 miles) from the coast on its way to the airport of Limon, a port city on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. The aircraft took off from Palenque, a Mexican city popular with tourists for its archaeological ruins, two hours and 41 minutes before it lost communication with the guiding control tower near Limon.

McFit: Germany's leading gym chain

McFit is Germany's largest fitness chain, having more than 200 gym studios in the country alone, plus centers in Austria, Italy, Poland and Spain. It has more than 1.4 million members.

Schaller was the owner of the organizing company of the electronic dance music festival Love Parade, at which 21 people died in a stampede in 2010 in the western German city of Duisburg. After that event, Schaller announced that the festival would be permanently canceled. The event was resurrected this year in Berlin by DJ Dr. Motte under a new moniker, "Rave the Planet," because the commercial rights to the "Love Parade" name lay with Schaller.

According to a 2019 investigation by German public broadcaster ARD, Schaller's net worth was estimated at around €250 million ($246 million).

lo/jsi (AFP, Reuters, dpa)