SWIRE chiefs will fly to the United States to support grieving families and make urgent business decisions after an air disaster killed four senior managers near Salt Lake City.
Eight people died when a chartered twin-engine turbo-prop light plane burst into flames and plummeted into a canyon at dawn on Monday.
Among the victims was Craig Taylor, 39, the chief executive of Swire Coca-Cola USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Swire Pacific.
Taylor was a frequent visitor to the territory as the head of Swire's bottling operation in the US, based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Also killed were the company's chief financial officer, Brad Moore, 36, marketing vice-president Gary Barber, 42, and marketing analyst Merlin Mikkelson, 36.
The men were flying 240 kilometres from Swire headquarters in Salt Lake City to Pocatello, Idaho, for a business meeting when the Mitsubishi MU-2B, leased by the Swire Coca-Cola USA executives, plunged 16,000 feet to the ground, leaving a large crater and a mass of barely distinguishable wreckage.