Cuba Plane Crash Kills 68
Sixty-eight people were killed in a fiery plane crash in themountains of Sancti Spiritus, Cuba on Thursday afternoon.
Aero Caribbean Flight 883 had taken off from Santiago de Cuba only an hour
before en route to Havana, when it issued a distress signal.
Moments later, the pilots of the ATR-72 twin turboprop plane lost contact with
air traffic controllers and went down in a mountainous area of the island.
Eyewitnesses on the ground say the plane made several abrupt movements before it
crashed and burst into flames.
Wreckage from the plane burned for hours, causing difficulty for rescue workers
who were already challenged by the dense vegetation blocking access to the site.
A bulldozer had to be used to reach the plane so that rescuers could recover
bodies, reported the Cuban media.
Not many details are known about the crash site, since Cuban authorities blocked
access to the media. However, witnesses say they saw a refrigerated truck
carrying body bags enter the area.
There is still no information about what might have caused the
crash, which killed all 61 passengers and seven crew members onboard. Among the
dead were 28 foreigners, mostly Latin Americans and Europeans.
The dead are being kept for identification at Havana’s Institute of Forensic
Medicine.
Despite the approach of Hurricane Tomas, there are no preliminary reports that
weather may have caused the crash. The hurricane is forecast to hit near Cuba’s
eastern tip on Friday.
The downed plane was one of the youngest in the fleet, and had only been in
operation since October 2006. The plane had accumulated almost 25,000 flight
hours and flown 34,500 flights.
Aero Caribbean is a state-owned regional airline in Cuba. The plane’s
manufacturer, ATR, released a statement today saying that it is cooperating with
Cuban aviation authorities in the investigation.
Yesterday’s crash was the first collision in Cuba since a small plane crashed
into a reservoir in the central state of Santa Clara, killing 12 foreign
tourists and four Cuban crew members in 2002
This is the worst aerial disaster to have befallen the island-nation since 1989
when a Cubana de Aviacion plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Havana,
killing 126 people on board and 24 people on the ground.
By Adriana Padilla for PeterGreenberg.com.
Related Links: New York Times, USA Today, Reuters
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