‘Speed Racer’ Actor Christian Oliver and Two Young Daughters Killed in Caribbean Plane Crash
Actor Christian Oliver, his two young daughters and the pilot died in a plane crash near a Caribbean island on Thursday, the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force announced. Oliver, whose real name was Christian Klepser, was 51.
His daughters, Madita Klepser and Annik Klepser, were 12 and 10, respectively. Pilot Robert Sachs also died in the crash. They were the only passengers aboard the plane.
More from Variety The aircraft was a small, one-engine plane owned and piloted by Sachs. It crashed one nautical mile west of Petit Nevis, a small island in the Grenadines, Thursday afternoon.
The plane left from the J.F. Mitchell Airport in Paget Farm, Bequia, an island in the Grenadines, around 12:11 p.m. bound for St. Lucia as its final destination.
“Moments after taking off, the aircraft experienced difficulties and plummeted into the ocean,” the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force wrote in a statement. “Fishermen and divers from Paget Farm went to the scene of the incident in their boats to render assistance. The SVG Coast Guard was informed and quickly traveled to Paget Farm, Bequia, to lead in the rescue efforts.”
The bodies of Oliver, his children and Sachs were recovered by the Coast Guard and later pronounced dead by a medical official. They were transported to St. Vincent and taken to the Kingstown Mortuary, where post-mortem examinations will be done to determine the causes of death.
Oliver had dozens of credits to his name from the 1990s through the 2020s. He most recently appeared in last year’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and played the racecar driver Snake Oiler in “Speed Racer” (2008). He also had roles in “Sense8,” “Inspector George Gently,” “The Baby-Sitters Club,” “Saved by the Bell: The New Class” and more.
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