According to information from the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger", the "Bild" and the "Express", the victims are said to be a 72-year-old entrepreneur and Honorary President of the Cologne Carnival Society, Blaue Funken, and his family, who flew over to the city in a small plane crashed in the Baltic Sea. The carnival club confirmed to the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger" that the entrepreneur and his family were on board the machine. "We know that there is little hope that any of them survived. But we still want to wait for the results of the search operation on site in the Baltic Sea," the newspaper quoted the written answer as saying.
The Cologne President of the Cologne Carnival, Christoph Kuckelkorn, posted a photo with the house of the Cologne Carnival Association on Instagram. Before that, the flags flutter at half-mast. Kuckelkorn wrote "stunned" and "without words" under the photo.
The Griesemann Group initially did not want to comment on the death of the entrepreneur when asked by stern. A corresponding statement will be published, said a spokeswoman by phone. When a statement is to be expected, she left open. Likewise, what the company will communicate about. The Griesemann Group website is currently being set up and cannot be accessed.
The entrepreneur flew with his wife and daughter in a private plane on a rather unusual route from Spain to Cologne over the Baltic Sea and crashed into the sea off the coast of Latvia. The Air Force confirmed the crash on Sunday evening on Twitter. Previously, all contact with the plane was broken off.
The aircraft was a Cessna 551, as reported by the Swedish newspaper "Dagens Nyheter". The machine flew beyond the island of Rügen, entered Swedish airspace, flew south of Gotland and continued its ghost flight towards the Gulf of Riga. Then she fell into the sea.
The newspaper "El País" reported, citing Spanish sources familiar with the incident, from a German family who are said to have heard the machine - an elderly man, his wife, a daughter of the couple and a man of their age. According to information from the Austrian news agency APA, the jet was registered in Austria and licensed to a German company.
"Bild" reported that the machine reported pressure problems in the cabin after taking off from Jerez in southern Spain. Accordingly, contact with the ground broke off just behind the Iberian Peninsula. In the airspace over France, a squad from the French army took over, before a squad from Neuburg an der Donau and later from Rostock-Laage took off in German airspace.
In the evening there was a rescue mission with international forces. The head of the Latvian sea rescue coordination center said on Latvian television that searches were being coordinated and the area was being combed.
Sources: "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger", with material from DPA
