Jose Alberto Suarez, the general manager of several Florida affiliates of the Spanish-language channel Telemundo, died along with four other Americans in a helicopter crash in Kenya, the NBC network, which includes the channel, confirmed. A total of seven people were on board, including the director of Ecuador's National Intelligence Center, Michele Sensi-Contugui, authorities in that country said.
A Eurocopter EC130 helicopter crashed on Wednesday, August 19, near Mount Ololokwe while transporting tourists, Kenyan authorities confirmed. Initially, the identities of the victims were not disclosed, but soon it became known about the deaths of Sensi-Kontuga and Suarez, and then ABC News revealed the entire list of victims, citing the police of the Kenyan district of Samburu.
In addition to Suarez, Americans Roger Duarte, Adam Hlavati and Henry Parra were killed, and along with Sensi-Contugui his wife, fashion designer Stephanie Houlihan Vascones, who had American and Ecuadorian passports, was killed. Kenyan helicopter pilot Josh Outram also did not survive.
The Miami Herald notes that Duarte, 42, was known in Florida as the founder of the My Ceviche restaurant chain. The businessman was married and had two children. In the city of Miami, the restaurateur received the nickname “King of the Stone Crab” – Bloomberg and Forbes wrote about him, and the latter publication also once included him in the list of 30 successful businessmen under 30 years old.
Duarte's family said in a statement to the Miami Herald that all of the dead tourists, including the Ecuadorian official, were friends of the businessman.
“The scale of this tragedy is impossible to comprehend, and we do not have words to describe how painful it is for us,” the restaurateur’s relatives emphasized.
The 44-year-old Italian-born Sensi-Contuga also worked in business before joining the Ecuadorian government in 2024. Suarez, 55, a Floridian, has spent his entire 25-year career in journalism.
The Kenya Red Cross said on Wednesday that the bodies of the victims could not be immediately removed from the site due to the fire and mountainous terrain. The organization promised to update X (formerly Twitter) with changes to the situation, but had not posted an update as of Thursday morning.
Search and recovery efforts are ongoing, hampered by difficult terrain access and an active fire at the crash site.
An additional team has been dispatched from Isiolo to reinforce the operation.
More updates to follow. https://t.co/XUjWArYul3 pic.twitter.com/qSApuA1b0y
— Kenya Red Cross (@KenyaRedCross) August 19, 2026
