The chief executive officer of tile company Italtile, Gianpaolo Ravazzotti, was one of nine people killed in a plane accident over Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route, the company said.
“The wreckage was located just off shore of the Robberg Nature Reserve [on Wednesday morning],” NSRI (the National Sea Rescue Institute) spokesman Craig Lambinon told Sapa on Wednesday morning.
“At this stage the operation is still being treated as a search and rescue with any hope to find survivors,” he said.
An aircraft that had been travelling from Queenstown to Plettenberg Bay on Tuesday disappeared while trying to land near the Robberg Nature Reserve in heavy fog.
The single-engine aircraft was carrying two crew and seven employees of Italtile Ltd, the company’s spokeswoman Del-Maree English said.