A prominent real estate developer and his wife were killed on Friday when the private plane they were in crashed off the coast of Jamaica. Laurence Glazer was known throughout his hometown of Rochester, New York as having an “uncanny instinct” for bringing crumbling buildings in the area back to life. His impact on the community was “incalculable.”
The 68-year-old and his wife Jane were flying a single engine Socata TBM-900 plane to their vacation home in Naples, Florida from Rochester, New York when something went wrong. According to CNN, the plane’s radio went silent at around 10:00 a.m., hours after Larry alerted air traffic controllers to an issue with the plane.
Fighter jets were called to trail the private plane. The North American Aerospace Defense Command indicated that the two onboard likely suffered from hypoxia, which occurs when the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply. Both appeared to be incapacitated, and as a result, the plane continued flying south over Florida and the Atlantic Ocean before finally crashing into the Caribbean Sea, miles off the coast of Jamaica.
The U.S. and Jamaica sent aircrafts to search for the crash site and found an oil slick roughly 14 miles from the northeast coast of Jamaica. After spending 70 hours covering an estimated area of 3,750 square miles, the U.S. Coast Guard ended its search on Sunday. Authorities haven’t indicated what the next step will be in finding the missing plane. French officials have volunteered to assist in the deepwater recovery of the plane, as it was manufactured in France.
The Glazers leave behind three children, who released a statement saying they are devastated by the loss of their parents and they are waiting for answers. Larry was the cofounder of Buckingham Properties, which owns and manages over 50 Rochester area properties. Jane founded QCI Direct, a household product catalog company. The plane the two were flying was owned by Buckingham.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the crash.
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