College freshman William Steinberg and his family died in a plane crash on Dec. 31.
Steinberg, along with his parents, Bruce and Irene Steinberg, as well as his two brothers, Matthew and Zachary, died while traveling from the resort town of Punta Islita on the Pacific coast to San José, the capital of Costa Rica. San José was the family's final destination before returning home to Scarsdale, New York, the New York Times reported.
Costa Rican authorities said the small, single-engine plane, which carried ten American passengers and two Costa Rican pilots, crashed into a mountain in the Guancaste province shortly after take-off, killing everyone on board. As of Sunday, the cause of the crash was still unknown, the Times reported.
President of Costa Rica Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera expressed his condolences for those affected in the plane crash on Facebook.
"I am in solidarity, on behalf of the people and government of Costa Rica, with the families of those who died in today's tragic air crash," he wrote on Facebook in the last few hours of Dec. 31.
A spokesperson from the U.S. State Department confirmed that multiple U.S. citizens had died in the crash, but did not provide further details, The Journal News reported.
Steinberg is the eighth Penn student to die in 2017. His death also comes two weeks after the death by suicide of a Penn Dental Departmental Chair Ricardo Teles.
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