Plane missing in Peruvian jungle

AIR traffic controllers last night lost contact with a Tans Peru plane carrying 42 passengers plus four crew as it approached a small mountain airport in a northern Peruvian jungle.

“The Fokker F-28 plane was declared in emergency at 8:43am (EST) near the Chachapoyas airport and...from that point on, we lost contact with the plane and have not had more news,” Jorge Belevan, head of the state airline’s public relations, told RPP radio.

A community telephone operator in Luya, near Chachapoyas, told RPP radio medical officials were heading to an area called Lonya Chico. “It appears there are people wounded,” she said.

Belevan said the plane had enough fuel to circle the airport and could have landed at another site, adding that weather conditions were “normal”.

Lizandro Torres, another Tans spokesman, said officials lost contact with the plane about five minutes before it was scheduled to land.

Belevan said a search was being mounted for the plane, which was travelling from the coastal city of Chiclayo to Chachapoyas, some 390 miles north of Lima.

Meanwhile, families claimed the bodies of some of the 75 people killed when a Turkish Airlines jetliner crashed short of a fog-covered runway in southeastern Turkey on Wednesday, and the prime minister yesterday ruled out sabotage.

The victims included an American and four Britons. Five survivors aboard the flight from Istanbul were hospitalised after the plane came down at Diyarbakir airport.

Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said: “It’s clear it was an accident. The pilot couldn’t reach the runway because of fog. It’s a miracle five people came out alive. The plane was torn apart.”

One of the survivors from the Turkish airliner, Aliye Il, a 48-year-old homemaker, said she was flying to Diyarbakir for the funeral of an aunt.

“A strong explosion rocked the plane and everyone and everything turned into balls of fire,” she said.

Il struggled to unbuckle her seat belt.

“I was screaming, ‘I can’t unbuckle it, I can’t unbuckle it’, but nobody could hear me. They were all screaming,” she said.

Il managed to unfasten her belt, falling out of the plane into a large pile of dry, cut grass.

Two Turkish warplanes also collided in heavy fog in nearby Malatya province yesterday, the military said. The pilots and navigators of the two F-4 jets were seen parachuting to the ground, but none of the four aviators survived.