Relatives of the passengers who perished in a plane crash near Andros on Monday have criticized the response of Bahamian authorities in the aftermath of the aircraft going missing.

The plane was piloted by Mario Lamar, 80. Also on board were his wife Lili and two grandchildren, Christian and Sofia Sosa. They were headed to Opa-Locka, Florida from Great Harbour Cay, Berry Islands.

Royal Bahamas Defence Force Commodore Floyd Moxey responded to the criticism on Thursday. He said, “I’m satisfied that we did a collaborative, we did a sustained effort. On the day that the incident occurred one of our international partners, our aircraft got within five nautical miles of where that aircraft was said to have gone down. Because of thunderstorm and lightning in the area they had to retreat and return back to base. Our aircraft a P-68 was unable fly in type of weather. But the next day our aircraft was out it did surveillance of the area. It did a sweep of the area. It coordinated with our interceptor that was basically minutes and hours away. I think we boarded that boat that the family was on earlier that night. And so we were definitely there.”

According to the Commodore RBDF officers were still in the area of the crash on Thursday assisting with efforts to find and recover the plane. He said, “we are still there. We have a sustained effort. Later today we are moving our 30 meter patrol craft, HMBS Kamalame in that area which will support the effort to locate the aircraft. We were there all yesterday. We were there the day prior and we will continue to search until we basically determine if the aircraft can be located or not.”

The bodies of the four passengers were discovered on Tuesday.

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