According to the local authorities, the German entrepreneur Rainer Schaller and relatives were on board the small plane that crashed off the coast of Costa Rica.

A source at the San Jose Department of Public Safety confirmed Sunday that the founder of gym chain McFit and five other people were in the plane at the time of Friday's crash.

So far, the bodies of two dead have been found, and the search for missing people has continued.

According to the ministry source, in addition to Schaller, a 44-year-old woman, a 40-year-old man, two children and a 66-year-old pilot with Swiss citizenship were on board.

The "Bild" newspaper reported on Saturday, citing a spokeswoman for the operator of the McFit studios, RSG-Group GmbH, that the German inmates were the 53-year-old entrepreneur, his girlfriend and her children and one another man.

“We patrol as long as time permits”

On Saturday, the search teams discovered the bodies of an adult and a child off the Caribbean coast of the Central American country, which were not initially identified.

Bags and rucksacks as well as part of the fuselage of the crashed machine were also found in the sea.

The remains of the machine were taken to the port of Limón.

"What you can see at the crash site was very intense," Public Safety Minister Jorge Torres said.

"We depend on what the sea gives us back and patrol while time permits," he said.

On Sunday morning, boats from the Costa Rican coast guard started again from the port of Limón and continued the search in the sea.

The machine that started in southern Mexico has been missing since Friday evening.

According to the minister, the plane was on its way to Limón province airport when contact with it was lost at 6:00 p.m. local time (Saturday, 2:00 a.m. CEST).

The plane suddenly lost connection with the control tower at Barra de Parismina airport.

Schaller founded the fitness chain "McFit" in the 1990s and had become a millionaire with the studios.

Later he also organized the Loveparade techno party.

A tragedy occurred at the Love Parade on July 24, 2010 in Duisburg, in which 21 people died in a crowd.

The Love Parade was then discontinued.

A criminal case in which Schaller himself was not prosecuted ended in 2020 without a verdict.