Jenni Rivera: A beautiful voice goes silent

Mark Memmott with NPR & wire services | December 10th, 2012, 8:30am

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Kevin Winter/Getty Images for LARAS

Singer Jenni Rivera at the 11th annual in 2010.

UPDATE 8:29 a.m.: The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is confirming that famed Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera, 43, died in a plane crash in northern Mexico, according to The Associated Press.

It is the first official confirmation of Rivera's death, although she has been widely presumed dead since the wreckage of her plane was found Sunday.

The NTSB is sending a team to assist Mexican authorities with the investigation. NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway says Mexican aviation authorities had confirmed Rivera's death to the NTSB.

PREVIOUSLY: The news that no survivors have been found in the wreckage of a small plane in which Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera and six others were traveling before it crashed

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Sunday in northern Mexico means "the world has lost one very beautiful voice," as E! Online writes .

According to The Associated Press :

"Transportation and Communications Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza said that 'everything points toward' [the plane] being the U.S.-registered Learjet 25 carrying Rivera and six other people from en route to Toluca, Mexico. The plane had gone missing after takeoff early Sunday. 'There is nothing recognizable, neither material nor human' in the wreckage,' Ruiz Esparza told the Televisa network."

Rivera, 43, "was the Diana Ross of Mexican music," Gustavo Lopez, an executive vice president at Universal Music Latin Entertainment, an umbrella group that includes Rivera's label, tells the .

On Morning Edition , NPR's Mandalit Del Barco told host Renee Montagne that Rivera was known as the "diva of ." Also, "watching the soap opera of Jenni Rivera's life" on reality TV — the singer was divorced three times — was a huge part of her popularity, Mandalit said.

E! Online notes that:

"For the past 20 years, the Long Beach [Calif.] native has been a strong force in the Latino music community, and has sold over 20 million albums worldwide, along with multiple nominations at the Latin Grammys. But her accomplishments didn't stop there. Rivera was the first female Banda artist to sell-out a concert at the world famous Gibson Amphitheater in Universal City, Calif., and became the first artist to sell-out two back-to-back nights at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. ...

"She also became the producer for her daughter Janney Marin's reality TV show on 's Mun2, Chiquis & Raq-C, and starred in her own show on the same network called , which premiered last year. The singer-songwriter was slated to star in a new family comedy, Jenni , on ABC."

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