Panama rescue crews Tuesday afternoon found the bodies of two Americans and a Panamanian pilot from an airplane crash in a mountainous area of dense forest, officials said.
A 12-year-old American girl, Francesca Lewis, survived the crash but suffered broken bones and hypothermia, said Roberto Velasquez, director of Panama's civil protection agency.
The three bodies were identified as pilot Edwin Lasso, Californian businessman Michael Klein and his 13-year-old daughter Talia, a statement posted on the agency's website said.
"It's a miracle the girl survived because the plane was smashed to pieces," said Velasquez cited by Reuters, adding her condition was stable.
The authority said the plane went down during bad weather near the town of Las Ovejas, 340 km west of the capital. They have yet to establish an official cause of the crash.
The media reports said Klein of Santa Barbara, 37, chief executive of U.S. hedge fund Pacificor, and the two girls were in Panama vacationing at the his private island in the Gulf of Chiriqui.
On Sunday, Panama's official source said a Cessna 172 aircraft, with a pilot and three passengers on board, disappeared from radar while flying from the Pacific island of Isla Seca to the town of Volcan in the heavily wooded Chiriqui province.
"They were supposed to be back on Christmas Eve," said Kurt Benjamin, a friend and associate of Klein.
Fog and heavy rains had forced rescue workers to intermittently suspend their three-day search for the plane.
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
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