ACANDí, Colombia, Nov. 18 (UPI) — An airplane carrying a baseball team crashed into a church in Colombia, killing the pilot and a 23-year-old former baseball prospect for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Rubén Darío Agudelo, the pilot, and baseball player Jordan Galvez Ortiz were killed when the Cessna 402 they traveled in crashed into the Divine Child Evangelical Church shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday near Acandí, the plane’s destination.
The plane, carrying the Antioquia Intersports baseball team, reportedly struck an electrical wire after taking off from Medellín at about 9:39 a.m.
At least seven others were injured, including the co-pilot and another baseball player — both injured critically. The team was traveling back to Acandí after participating in Colombia’s National Games.
“I saw the plane when it passed and it was sounding weird,” Acandí resident Carmen Rosa Builes said, Noticias Caracol reported. “He veered up and perhaps he crashed into a palm, lost velocity and fell on top of the church. The church is done.”
Galvez Ortiz, a Medellín native, signed to the Pittsburgh Pirates on a three-year deal when he was 16 and spent the 2010-12 seasons playing in Latin American summer league teams affiliated with the Pirates. He played 157 games in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic before returning to Colombia.
Known as “El Prospe” — slang for “The Prospect” — Galvez Ortiz was seen as a promising star in the local baseball community.
“He had good runs and we always believed in him,” childhood friend Jonathan Ojeda told El Tiempo. “He was very sociable, we enjoyed him a lot.”
“He stayed as ‘Prospe’ because he was the hope for the whole team,” Ojeda added.
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