A plane carrying the Mexican-American singer and television star Jenni Rivera crashed early Sunday morning, Mexican officials said, adding that they feared there were no survivors.
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Ms. Rivera recently won two Billboard Mexican Music Awards: Female Artist of the Year and Banda Album of the Year. More Photos »
In addition to Ms. Rivera, there were four passengers and two pilots aboard the American-registered Learjet 25. There was no immediate indication as to what caused the crash.
Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, Mexico’s transportation and communications minister, said that the authorities found what remained of the plane in mountainous terrain in northeastern Mexico, just south of Monterrey, on Sunday night. He cautioned that a more-thorough inspection would have to be completed before any deaths could be confirmed.
“There is nothing recognizable, neither material nor human in the wreckage,” Mr. Esparza told the Mexican network Televisa, according to a translation by The Associated Press.
“This is what’s so regrettable, that it was so badly destroyed that there’s nothing recognizable,” he said.
The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Ms. Rivera, 43, was born and raised in Long Beach, Calif., and had legions of fans on both sides of the border.
She gained initial acclaim for her interpretations of a Mexican regional style of music known as banda. Traditionally, it is a style of music dominated by men, so her success was something of a rarity, according to a profile of the singer on Billboard.com.
She recently won two Billboard Mexican Music Awards: female artist of the year and banda album of the year for “Joyas Prestadas: Banda.”
Ms. Rivera sold more than 15 million albums worldwide, including 1.2 million albums and 349,000 digital tracks in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Ms. Rivera was also one of NBCUniversal’s best-known bilingual television stars, appearing in her own reality show, “I Love Jenni,” on the Mexican cable channel Mun2.
On Sunday, she was flying from Monterrey to Toluca, near Mexico City, where she was to tape an episode of the Mexican version of the NBC show “The Voice,” on which she was one of the judges.
The plane took off from Monterrey around 3:30 a.m. and was in the air for 10 minutes before it lost contact with air-traffic controllers, according to the Mexican authorities.
As word of the crash spread Sunday night, there was an immediate outpouring of condolences from fellow artists, including Ricky Martin and Gloria Estefan.
“Praying for her and her family during this difficult and uncertain time,” Ms. Estefan wrote on Twitter.
The mother of five children, Ms. Rivera recently announced that she was seeking a divorce from her third husband, Esteban Loaiza, a pitcher for several Major League Baseball teams, including the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.
After her concert in Monterrey on Saturday, she spoke about her personal struggles.
“I can’t get caught up in the negative because that destroys you,” she said, according to The Associated Press. “Perhaps trying to move away from my problems and focus on the positive is the best I can do. I am a woman like any other, and ugly things happen to me like any other woman.”
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Plane Wreckage of Mexican-American Singer Jenni Rivera Found
