PUNTA GORDA — An air show aerobatic pilot from Key West who performed here often over the past 20 years as part of the Florida International Air Show was killed along with a journalist Tuesday when their plane crashed in Cozumel, Mexico.

The pilot, Freddy Cabanas, 60, and passenger, Jorge Lopez Vives, host of an extreme sports program, were killed when their plane’s wing tip “clipped a tree” while on a landing approach. That caused the plane to get “sucked into the ground,” said Bob Hall, air boss for the nonprofit Florida International show, who had been close friends and an air show colleague with Cabanas for decades.