Plane carrying child burn victims crashes in Texas, killing five

A Mexican Navy plane crashed in foggy conditions near Galveston, Texas, on Monday while transporting a burned child, killing at least five people.

The plane was last recorded flying over Galveston Bay near Scholes International Airport at 15:01 local time (21:01 GMT), according to flight tracking website Flight Radar.

The plane was on a medical mission on behalf of the Michou y Mau Foundation, which provides care for severely burned children in Mexico.

The Mexican Navy Secretariat said one person was still missing and two others had been rescued.

Video footage shared by The Associated Press showed the wreckage of the plane in the water as witnesses and police entered the water to search for the wreckage.

Sky Decker, a local yacht captain, said he led two police officers to the scene of the nearly submerged plane and jumped into the water to find a seriously injured woman trapped.

He said: “I couldn’t believe it. She probably had a three-inch air gap to breathe.

“There was jet fuel mixed with water and the smoke was pretty bad. She was literally fighting for her life.”

Mexico’s Navy Secretariat said earlier that search and rescue operations were being coordinated with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Video taken near Galveston’s Scholes International Airport showed rescue workers, including a dive team, working in thick fog.

In a statement shared on X, the Michou y Mau Foundation “expresses its deepest condolences to the families of the victims of this tragedy.”