After the mysterious crash of a plane in the Baltic Sea, Latvian rescue workers may have found human body parts in the sea while searching for the plane and its occupants. The remains were discovered on Monday evening in the Baltic Sea before nightfall, Latvian Navy spokeswoman Liva Veita told the Latvian agency Leta on Tuesday.

The head of the Latvian Sea Rescue Coordination Center, Peteris Subbota, confirmed the find on Latvian radio, which was taken to Ventspils and handed over to the criminal police for investigation.

Search with special naval equipment

The private plane flew over the Baltic Sea on Sunday on its way from Spain to Cologne. There it fell into the sea in the evening off the coast west of the Latvian port city of Ventspils. Communication with the Cessna 551 with four people on board had been interrupted for a long time before the accident. The identity of the passengers has not yet been officially confirmed. The systems engineering company Griesemann from Wesseling near Cologne announced on Monday evening that the four missing persons were the company founder Peter Griesemann as well as two family members and one other person.

Ships of the Latvian Navy and the Border Guard are used for search at sea. According to the Latvian authorities, a total of eleven fragments of the crashed machine have been found so far. "Today we will start the underwater search looking for most of the aircraft that most likely sank right at the crash site using special Navy equipment," Subbota said. For example, drones are to be used to search under the sea surface.