The Aircraft Had Been Transporting Fashion Executive Vittorio Missoni

The airplane that went down off the coast of Venezuela January 4 with fashion executive Vittorio Missoni on board has reportedly been discovered north of the Los Roques Archipelago in the Caribbean.

There were six people on board the Britten-Norman Islander airplane, including Missoni's wife, when it went down. The only thing that had been found until the announcement of the discovery of the wreckage was a suitcase from the plane which washed up on the beach on Curacao a few weeks after it went down.

UPI reports Venezuelan authorities said Thursday that the wreckage was found in about 200 feet of water.

The Missoni family released a statement to the Italian news agency ANSA thanking the Italian and Venezuelan governments for continuing the search for the plane. They said a recovery effort would be undertaken. In the statement they said they are "confident that the investigation will follow through to the ascertainment of the causes and the responsibility for the accident."

The Huffington Post reports that the wreckage was discovered by the oceanographic ship Deep Sea.

(Britten-Norman Islander image from file. Not accident airplane.)

FMI: www.missoni.com