Costa Rican Charter Carrier Involved In Accident Which Fatally Injured 10 U.S. Citizens

The General Directorate of Civil Aviation in Costa Rica has suspended the operating certificate of Nature Air following an accident in which 10 U.S. citizens were fatally injured o New Year's Eve.

The certificate was pulled after it was determined that the airline was unable to assure safe operations after the loss of three senior executives, according to a report from Forbes. A former operations manager for Nature Air recently claimed that the airline's operations had become "irregular."

Last week, the Costa Rican Judicial Investigation Agency collected documents from two of the airline's offices and from the DCAG, the country's civil aviation authority. The Costa Rica Star reports that the day after the documents were seized, Jorge Valverde Esquivel, the airline's operations manager, resigned after telling the DGAC that there were "irregularities in the operation of the company."

Valverde became the fourth employee the company had lost in or since the accident, and in a letter dated January 11, the DCAG said Nature Air no longer had a sufficient staff to provide safe operations. The letter cited the loss of pilots Juan Manuel Retana Chinchilla and Emma Ramos Calderón in the accident. The airline's safety director, Rodney Duran, is on extended sick leave.

The Cost Rica Star reports that the remains of the 10 U.S. Citizens fatally injured in the accident have been repatriated to their families.

(Image from file)

FMI: Original Report