Lanhsa Airlines aircraft crashes into Caribbean Sea near Honduras coast: video

A Lanhsa Airlines aircraft has crashed into the sea near the Caribbean coast of Honduras with 17 people on board, local authorities confirmed. 

The accident happened on March 17, 2025, at 18:16 local time, shortly after the aircraft, a Jetstream 32 with registration HR-AYW, took off from Juan Manuel Gálvez International Airport (RTB) in Roatan Island. The island is in the Caribbean Sea, about 65 kilometers off the northern coast of Honduras. 

The aircraft was operating commercial flight LNH018 to Golosón International Airport (LCE) on the Honduran mainland. The local civil aviation authority, Agencia Hondureña de Aeronáutica Civil (AHAC), confirmed in a statement that the aircraft plunged into the sea seconds after takeoff.  

The country’s Transport Minister Miguel Ángel Gámez informed local media that the wreckage was found approximately one kilometer (0.6 miles) off the island’s coast.  

There were two crew members and 15 passengers on board the aircraft, according to AHAC. The local fire department confirmed that a total of 12 people on board had died in the accident, leaving five survivors. 

Local media reports indicate that the flight manifest included a US citizen, a French citizen and two children. Fire officials confirmed that the Garifuna musician Aurelio Martinez Suazo was among those who died in the crash. 

Video footage spread on X shows rescue workers carrying survivors onto a rocky shore.

While the exact cause of the crash is still not clear, reports from local media, citing police sources, suggest that the aircraft experienced an apparent mechanical failure during take-off, resulting in a loss of engine power.  

On March 18, 2025, Honduran President Xiomara Castro said in a statement on X that the public hospitals in San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba were “ready to attend to the injured passengers.” 

Castro added that the Emergency Operations Committee (COE) teams, including the Honduran Armed Forces, Fire Department, the Permanent Contingency Commission of Honduras (COPECO), the National Police, the Red Cross, the Ministry of Health, and the National Airport Authority (SAN), immediately arrived in the area of the plane crash, and are “tirelessly assisting in the unfortunate accident.”