RIGA, Sept 5 (Reuters) – A prominent German businessman was on board the private jet that crashed in the Baltic Sea off Latvia after flying to the middle of Europe from Spain without responding to controllers’ calls, his company, Quick, said on Monday Air. The aircraft, an Austria-flagged Cessna 551, left Jerez in southern Spain on Sunday afternoon, circling Paris and Cologne before flying straight into the Baltic Sea, where it crashed into the water off the coast of Latvia, according to flight tracking data. “I can confirm that it was the private jet of our owner, Karl-Peter Griesemann,” said a spokesman for Quick Air, an air charter company based in Cologne. Griezmann and three others were on the plane, the spokesman added. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Cologne’s Express newspaper reported that Griesemann was the pilot and was accompanied by his wife, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend. The cause of the crash is not yet known. Spain’s air traffic control agency ENAIRE said it lost contact with the aircraft in the airspace over Toledo at 1455 local time (1255 GMT), an hour after it took off. He alerted controllers in France and two warplanes were sent to track the jet. Aircraft from several countries and a passenger ferry headed to the crash site on Sunday afternoon to help with the rescue operation. Wreckage, a compacted piece of debris and an oil slick were found near the crash site, Latvian search and rescue chief Petris Subota told Latvian television, adding that no passengers were found. German and Danish warplanes were sent to observe the plane as it flew over northern Europe on Sunday afternoon, but were unable to locate anyone on board. read more Griesemann has been a prominent figure in Cologne, the largest city in western Germany, playing a role in the deeply Catholic city’s annual carnival celebrations. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Reporting by Thomas Escritt in Berlin, Janis Laizans in Riga and Inti Landauro in Madrid. Edited by Bradley Perrett and Mark Potter Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
