Venezuela investigates cause of fatal plane crash: Chavez
MERIDA, Venezuela (AFP) — Investigators in Venezuela are working to find out why a plane crashed into a mountain face shortly after take-off this week, killing all 46 people on board, President Hugo Chavez said Friday.
The wreckage of the twin-prop ATR-42 aircraft was found early Friday just 10 kilometers (six miles) from the airport of Merida, a town in the western Andes region that was its point of departure.
It went down just before sunset Thursday, minutes after leaving for the capital Caracas, 500 kilometers (300 miles) away.
"The crashed plane practically disintegrated, and only debris can be seen in a rugged zone," the head of Venezuela's civil protection service, General Antonio Rivero, said after flying over the site.
Mountain rescue teams were climbing a sheer mountain face known as La Cara del Indio (the Indian's face) to get at the wreck, which was at nearly 4,000 meters' altitude, Rivero said.
The rough terrain meant it could take up to three days to recover all the bodies, he said. Strong winds and low clouds were hampering the use of helicopters.
Chavez confirmed that all those on the plane had died and offered his condolences to the victims' families.
"We do not know the cause but an investigation is underway. The crash took place in a remote mountainous area," he said in an address to the nation, adding that weather was not suspected to be a factor.
Aerial photos showed only the tail of the plane intact, stuck in the mountain. The rest of the aircraft was pulverized.
The plane was owned by a small Venezuelan outfit, Santa Barbara Airlines, which said that, while it dated from the late 1980s, regular maintenance had been properly carried out.
The company, based out of the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, had no record of accidents prior to the crash.
The head of the national civil protection service, Antonio Rivero, told AFP the aircraft was carrying three crew members and 43 passengers at the time of the accident.
According to Merida governor Florencio Porras, those believed to have been on board included family of Venezuela's junior minister for citizen security Tarek El Alssami; an opposition political analyst, Italo Luongo; and a mayor from the Merida region, Alexander Quintero, and his 11-year-old son.
Noel Marquez, the regional chief of the civil protection service in Merida said the plane had not sent any emergency signal during its flight.
The first sign that anything was wrong was when it lost contact with air traffic controllers.
Local residents soon phoned in saying they had heard what sounded like a plane crash, triggering an immediate ground rescue operation that had to suspended overnight because of the rugged terrain and freezing, high-altitude conditions.
Operations resumed early Friday, with one of three helicopters scouring the area finally spotting the crash site.
Santa Barbara Airlines was founded in 1995 and serves both domestic and international routes, flying to Madrid, Miami, Aruba and Tenerife.
The Aviation Safety Network, an online service that tracks aviation accidents worldwide, said the ATR-42-300 plane used by the airline had been involved in 16 other crashes in other countries over the past two decades.
