TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) – Hilda Hernandez, sister of President Juan Orlando Hernandez, and five other people were killed in a helicopter crash Saturday on a mountain near the Honduran capital.
Hernandez, 51, was an agronomy engineer who served as communications minister under her brother and as minister of social development during the previous administration of then-President Porfirio Lobo.
The military helicopter carrying Hernandez, four members of her security detail, and a pilot took off from Tegucigalpa’s international airport in the morning bound for her residence in Comayagua, about 60 kilometers from the capital.
Soon afterward, the air force reported that the aircraft had gone missing. The wreckage was later discovered in the mountains outside Tegucigalpa with no survivors.
President Hernandez changed his Twitter profile picture to a black ribbon of mourning. He later changed it to his sister.
