A small Mexican navy plane on a medical mission crashed Monday near Galveston, Texas, killing at least six people, including a 2-year-old, officials said.
Two people were taken to the hospital, the U.S. Coast Guard said earlier. There was no immediate word on their condition. One passenger, a 27-year-old, was uninjured, the Coast Guard said. It was unclear if that person was one of the two who had been taken to the hospital. One person who had been missing was found dead Tuesday, the Mexican navy said.
The Mexican navy said the plane, a twin turboprop Beech King Air 350i, had been carrying eight people: four navy officers and four civilians. In addition to the 2-year-old, the victims included his doctor and the four members of the Mexican navy.
Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News via AP
The plane was helping with a medical mission in coordination with the Michou and Mau Foundation, a nonprofit that provides emergency transports to children with life-threatening burns to Shriners Children’s hospital in Galveston.
The foundation said in a post on social media, “We express our deepest solidarity with the families in light of these events. We share their grief with respect and compassion, honoring their memory and reaffirming our commitment to providing humane, sensitive, and dignified care to children with burns.”
The crash took place Monday around 3:17 p.m. local time near the base of a causeway near Galveston, along the Texas coast about 50 miles southeast of Houston. Flight tracking data shows the plane took off from Merida International Airport in Merida, Mexico. It crossed the Gulf and swung around to approach the Galveston airport before disappearing from radar while over Galveston Bay.
Sky Decker, a professional yacht captain who lives about a mile from the crash site, said he jumped in his boat with his 11-year-old son to see if he could help. He said he picked up two police officers who directed him through thick fog.
“We just saw a crushed ball of aluminum,” Decker told CBS News. “It appeared to me that there would be no way that anybody could be alive inside of the wreckage because it was almost fully submerged too.”
Decker jumped in the water and found a badly injured woman, a nurse named Miriam Mancilla, trapped beneath chairs and other debris. Dramatic cell phone video shows him moving debris out of the way to help free her.
“I couldn’t believe. She had maybe 3 inches of air gap to breathe in,” he said. “And there was jet fuel in there mixed with the water, fumes real bad. She was really fighting for her life.”
“She was in a dire situation,” Decker told CBS News.
He said he also pulled out a man sitting in front of her who had already died. He described both of them as dressed in civilian clothes.
Asked how he felt about people calling him a hero, Decker told CBS News, “I just think I was the right guy to be there at the right time. That I’m comfortable with the water and God put me there at the right time to save that woman.”
The cause of the crash is under investigation. It wasn’t immediately clear if weather was a factor. However, the area has been experiencing foggy conditions over the past few days, according to Cameron Batiste, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
He said that at about 2:30 p.m. Monday, a fog came in that had about a half-mile visibility.
