FL Family Missing After Small Plane Disappears After Leaving Bahamas

OPA-LOCKA, FL — The U.S. Coast Guard is assisting Bahamian officials in the search for a family of four who went missing in their small plane that left the Bahamas for South Florida on Monday afternoon, authorities said.

Police on the island of Andros received a report around 2:20 p.m. that a plane may have gone down in the waters off Red Bays, the Royal Bahamas Police Force said in a news release.

The PA-34 Piper five-seat aircraft, with a tail number of N212ML, took off from Great Harbour Cay that morning at 11:12 a.m., on its way back to Miami Executive Airport in Opa-locka, police said.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane about 13 miles west of Andros Island.

The plane “lost complete signal and complete connection from all towers and authorities,” Silvia Larrieu, speaking on behalf of the family, told WSVN.

The U.S. Coast Guard Southeast wrote in a post to X that the agency is assisting with the search for the plane and those on board.

Larrieu identified her uncle, Mario Lamar, 80, who was piloting the plane, and her aunt and his wife, Lili, 79, and two of their grandchildren, Sofia Sosa, 28, and Christian Sosa, 22, as those missing, reports said.

Mario had more than 40 years of flying experience, she told the Miami Herald-Tribune.

The four were returning from a Labor Day weekend visit to a vacation property in Great Harbour Cay, reports said.

Larrieu said that the couple had “spent their whole life going there.”

The family is asking anyone who is able to help with the search.

“I ask anybody out there who could help with search and rescue and any other efforts, we would greatly appreciate it. We need to bring them home,” Larrieu said.

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