A desperate search is underway for an 80-year-old pilot, his wife, and their two grandchildren after their private plane crashed on September 7, 2026, near Andros Island in the Bahamas while en route to Florida.
A Miami family is asking for all the help they can get finding their loved ones who went missing on a flight from Great Harbour Cay in the Bahamas to Miami on Monday morning. The aircraft, a five-seater PA-34 Piper (also identified as a Piper PA-34 Seneca, a six-seat aircraft bearing the tail number N212ML), vanished from radar after encountering passing storms near the northern end of Andros Island while on a return flight from a vacation home.
Bahamian and U.S. forces are searching for the four passengers who were aboard the small private plane, scheduled to land at Miami Executive Airport in Southwest Miami-Dade after taking off from Great Harbour Cay.
The Flight and the Disappearance Near Andros Island
The aircraft departed from Great Harbour Cay on Monday morning, carrying four members of the same family bound for South Florida. The passengers were identified by relatives as pilot Mario Lamar, 80, his wife Lili Lamar, 79, and two of their grandchildren, 28-year-old Sofia Sosa and 22-year-old Christian Sosa.
The Miami couple and their grandkids spent Labor Day weekend watching the sunset at their home in Great Harbour Cay before tragedy struck. Sofia Sosa is a recent graduate of Wake Forest University, and her brother, Christian Sosa, just graduated from Loyola Marymount University.
According to FlightAware data, the plane went off the radar after its speed rapidly fluctuated and its altitude suddenly dropped from 10,000 feet to 3,700 feet in just three minutes. The flight tracking map showed the PA-34 Piper’s route appearing to spin around a few times off the Bahamian coast before disappearing from the radar, with its path also looping in a circle. After that, no data is available.
Bahamian authorities received a report that the five-seater aircraft en route to Opa-locka, Florida, had plummeted into the water 13 miles west of Andros Island at 2:20 p.m. on Monday, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
Family Pleads for Help as International Search Yields Negative Results
Relatives first realized something was wrong when the family group chat went quiet. Sofia had sent a text letting everyone know they were flying home, which was the last they heard from her. Hours later, messages sent to her showed as unreturned, prompting the family to look up the plane on FlightAware.
Silvia Larrieu, a niece of Mario and Lili, spoke about the family’s deep ties to Great Harbour Cay, where they spent Labor Day weekend catching beautiful sunsets at their home, a lifelong vacation spot for the family.
“They’ve spent their whole life going there. That’s like their second home,” Silvia Larrieu, a niece of Mario and Lili, told the outlet. “They were coming home.”
Larrieu also noted that her uncle Mario, the pilot, was well-trained and had more than 40 years of flying experience.
She added that he kept the plane in “pristine” shape and had all the required safety gear on board.
The flight passed through rough weather near the north end of Andros Island, where the search is focused. That passing storm and rough weather prevented Bahamian forces from immediately searching for the wreckage.
“Please help,” she added in a video statement. “I ask anybody out there, if you can help with search and rescue efforts, we would greatly appreciate it. We need to bring them home.”
Larrieu added that the family is pleading with members of the public capable of assisting to lend a hand, stating they want help tracking down the plane whether it’s by plane, by boat, any signs that you’ve noticed, to help us find them and bring them back alive.
Another relative, the Lamars’ son, has already flown out to Andros to grab a boat and aid the search.
Joint Response From Coast Guard and Bahamian Authorities
Coast Guard officials said they received a request from the Royal Bahamian Defense Force around 2 p.m. following reports of a downed plane with four people onboard. The U.S. Coast Guard is assisting authorities in the Bahamas with the search for the downed aircraft with an HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplane, the agency said in a statement on social media.
As of 5 p.m. on Monday, the Defence Force said in a statement that its search so far has yielded negative results.
By Monday evening, crews have begun searching for where the plane went down, and there has been no word on the status of the four occupants on that plane.
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