Families perish in plane crash

Nine members of two families — one from Belleair, Florida, near Clearwater, and one from Scarsdale, near New York City — were killed when their charter airplane crashed after takeoff Sunday in Costa Rica. All 12 people on board lost their lives.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Costa Rican investigators said Monday that strong winds or mechanical problems most likely caused a charter aircraft to crash, killing two crew members and 10 U.S. citizens, including families from New York and Florida.

The families from the New York City suburb of Scarsdale and from Belleair, Fla., accounted for nine of the dead and were part of a tour organized by Backroads. Their guide was the 10th U.S. victim. A Backroads spokeswoman said their employee on the flight was Amanda Geissler, a native of Thorp, Wis.

Michael Soto, deputy director of Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation agency, said authorities would begin identifying the remains through DNA testing and dental records Tuesday. Forensic workers recovered the bodies from the wooded site Sunday night.

A family in the suburbs of New York City said five of the dead were relatives on vacation. They identified them as Bruce and Irene Steinberg and their sons Matthew, William and Zachary, all of Scarsdale.

“We are in utter shock and disbelief right now,” Bruce Steinberg’s sister, Tamara Steinberg Jacobson, wrote on Facebook.

In St. Petersburg, Fla., Rabbi Jacob Luski of Congregation B’nai Israel said victims’ relatives had informed him that four members of his congregation were also on the plane.

“It is a tragedy that the Drs. Mitchell Weiss and Leslie Weiss and their two children, Hannah and Ari, died in that terrible crash,” he said. “They were a wonderful family who will be missed.”

The Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, Fla., where both the Weiss parents practiced, said Mitchell Weiss was a vascular and interventional radiologist and Leslie Weiss was pediatrician.