Costa Rican rescue teams find one survivor after plane crash leaves 5 people dead

Rescuers found one survivor after a small plane crashed into a Costa Rican mountainside

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- The sole survivor of a plane crash near Costa Rica’s capital, in which five other people died, is in serious condition in a hospital, the local Red Cross said on Tuesday.

The 31-year-old woman was one of six people on board the small aircraft when it crashed southeast of San Jose.

The Central American country’s civil aviation authorities said the Cessna 206 Stationair came down near Pico Blanco mountain just after midday Monday.

Search and rescue officials located the wreckage on the mountainside, but it took hours for teams to reach the site. It wasn’t until early Tuesday that the Red Cross reported that the survivor had been transferred to hospital.

The victims were all Costa Ricans between the ages of 27 and 64, the Red Cross said.

The plane had taken off from Tortuguero on Costa Rica’s northern Caribbean coast and was en route to San Jose. The cause of the crash is under investigation.