Helicopter crash kills Mexican tycoon Moises Saba Masri, 4 others

Crash kills Mexican tycoon Moises Saba Masri

MEXICO CITY — Mexican telecom and real estate tycoon Moises Saba Masri and several members of his family have died in a helicopter crash in the foothills outside Mexico City.

Saba Masri belongs to one of Mexico’s most prominent business clans and once held stakes in the Unefon telephone company and the Morelia soccer team, said Dan McCosh, a spokesman for Grupo Salinas, which operates those companies.

Saba Masri, his wife, son and daughter-in-law were killed in the crash late Sunday after an eight-seat Agusta 109 helicopter heading into Mexico City from the nearby city of Toluca clipped the top of a three-story building, fell into a deep gully and apparently exploded, said Mexico City Civil Defense Secretary Elias Moreno. The pilot also died.

The family had arrived at the international airport in Toluca, 35 miles (55 kilometers) west of the capital, on a flight from New York City and was heading home to Mexico City.

Moreno said it was unusual for a helicopter to be flying in the area at night, especially since the foothills were covered in fog. The mountains and foothills separating Toluca and Mexico City are notoriously dangerous for helicopters because of altitudes that exceed 11,500 feet (3,500 meters) and frequent fog.

“There was not good visibility,” Moreno said. “The question is who authorized the flight.”

City officials and the country’s civil aviation agency were investigating Sunday’s crash.

No deaths or injuries were reported on the ground, even though Moreno said the craft sheared off a railing on the roof of a three-story home, then hit two parked cars and a tree before tumbling into a 65-foot-deep (20-meter-deep) creek bed. The wreckage covered a radius of 60 yards (meters) in the pine-clad hills on the city’s western edge.

“You could say it was a miracle, because this is a populated area,” Moreno said. “Neighbors say the blast was so strong it shook their houses.”

Initial reports indicated another person had been on board, but Moreno confirmed there were only five.

President Felipe Calderon sent condolences Monday to Saba Masri and to Mexico’s Jewish community. The businessman is survived by his father and at least one other child, according to officials and sources close to the family.

Saba Masri, 46, did not participate in his family’s main business, pharmaceuticals distributor Grupo Casa Saba.

Instead, he struck out as an investor in diverse areas, including telephones, Internet service and real estate. In 2007 he made an unsuccessful bid for a government-held stake in one of the country’s two main airlines, Aeromexico.

Saba Masri was an early investor in TV Azteca, Mexico’s second-largest network, and in the Unefon telephone company, where he sold his stake in 2007.

He owned a stake in at least one hotel in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged him in 2004 with manipulative securities trading, though the charges were later dismissed.

Last year, he angered movie fans and preservationists in Mexico City when his development company tore down a landmark movie theater to build an office tower.