‘Please help’: Miami family searching for loved ones after plane vanishes in Bahamas

A Miami family is asking for all the help they can get finding their loved ones who went missing on a flight from Great Harbour Cay in the Bahamas to Miami on Monday morning.

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Bahamian and U.S. forces are searching for the four passengers who were aboard the small private plane, identified by family as pilot Mario Lamar, his wife Lili Lamar and two of their college-aged grandchildren, Sofia Sosa and Christian Sosa.

They spent Labor Day weekend catching beautiful sunsets at their home on Great Harbour Cay, a lifelong vacation spot for the family.

“They’ve spent their whole life going there. That’s like their second home,” said Silvia Larrieu, niece of Mario and Lili. “They were coming home.”

Larrieu said the family first realized something was wrong when the family group chat went quiet.

Sofia had sent a text letting everyone know they were flying home, the last they’d heard from her. Hours later, messages sent to her showed as unreturned. Then, the family looked up the plane on FlightAware.

The Piper PA-34 Seneca, a six-seat aircraft, was last seen on radar around 11 a.m., when FlightAware data shows the plane’s speed rapidly shifting up and down, before the altitude dropped from around 10,000 feet to 3,700 feet in just three minutes. The plane’s path also looped in a circle.

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After that, no data is available.

The U.S. Coast Guard is assisting the Royal Bahamas Defence Force in the search for the downed aircraft, it said in a statement on X. As of 5 p.m., the Defence Force said in a statement that its search so far has “yielded negative results.”

Larrieu said Mario, the pilot, was well trained and had years of experience. He kept the plane in “pristine” shape and had all the required safety gear on board, she said.

The FlightAware recording of the plane’s partial path toward Miami shows it crossing some rough weather near the north end of Andros Island, where the search is focused.

That rough weather blocked Bahamian Forces from starting the search immediately, she said. But another relative, the Lamars’ son, has already flown out to Andros to grab a boat and aid the search.

“Please help,” Larrieu said in a video statement. “I ask anybody out there, if you can help with search and rescue efforts, we would greatly appreciate it. We need to bring them home.”

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Miami Herald staff writer Jacqueline Charles contributed to this report.

This story was originally published September 7, 2026 at 5:39 PM.