The search carried out at sea, off the coast of Costa Rica, had made it possible to find debris from the plane and the bodies of two of the passengers of the private flight, which left from Mexico, which had lost contact Friday evening with the control tower in Costa Rica at Limon where he was to land.
The millionaire, his wife, their children and another man
Claims by the German newspaper Bild, which specified that the occupants of the small plane were the founder of the McFit gyms, Rainer Schaller, his partner and their two children, as well as another man, have been partly confirmed by the government this Sunday, October 22. A source from the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Security confirmed that “Schaller, a 53-year-old man”as well as five people, appear on the list of passengers of the damaged plane in the Caribbean Sea.
Among the occupants of the aircraft are also “Schikorsky, 44-year-old woman, Kurreck, 40-year-old man and two minors” of German nationality, as well as a 66-year-old Swiss pilot whose last name is Lips, according to an official report.
The two bodies found, an adult and a minor, have not yet been identified. The recovered objects, such as bags, as well as part of the plane’s fuselage, were transported to a wharf in the town of Limón, in the province of the same name, a port located some 160 km east. east of the capital. On Sunday, two coastguard boats were still at sea to continue the search.
A fortune thanks to discount gyms
This 50-year-old made his fortune in the fitness industry starting in 1997 when he opened his first studio under the McFit brand in Würzburg, Germany, before diversifying his activities. It is its positioning on the discount market that has made the success of its brand. In 2006, McFit operated 62 fitness studios in Germany with a total of 400,000 members and 1,000 permanent employees. In 2011, McFit thus became the largest operator of fitness studios in Europe, with more than one million members. At the end of 2020, Schaller’s group of companies employed 41,000 people in 48 countries, managed 17 different brands and more than 1,000 studios.