Martha Erika Alonso, the governor of the Mexican state of Puebla, and her husband, Rafael Moreno Valle, who was a senator and former governor, were on Monday killed in a helicopter crash, the country’s president said.
“My deepest condolences to the relatives of Senator Rafael Moreno Valle and his wife, governor of Puebla Martha Erika Alonso,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wrote on Twitter.
“I assume the commitment to investigate the causes” and “tell the truth about what happened,” Lopez Obrador wrote.
It was learned that the helicopter’s two pilots and an assistant to the senator also died in the crash.
According to AFP, the aircraft went down 10 minutes after taking off in the Santa Maria Coronango area of Puebla, and the cause of the crash is still unknown.
Late Alonso was sworn in as governor on December 14 after an electoral tribunal certified her victory in July polls.
The deceased was the first woman to occupy the position in Puebla, where her husband was governor from 2011 to 2017.
According to the local constitution, the state legislature will have to appoint an interim governor and to call an extraordinary vote that must be held in three to five months, AFP reports