No survivors as plane wreck found

A VENEZUELAN passenger plane slammed into a steep mountainside in the Andes, killing all 46 people on board, officials said yesterday.

“By the way it crashed we can determine there are no survivors,” said General Ramon Vinas, head of the civil aviation authority.

Search teams reached the remote site by helicopter and had to lower themselves with ropes onto the “complicated” mountainous terrain, General Vinas said.

“The impact was direct. The aircraft is practically pulverised,” firefighter Sgt Johnny Paz told Venezuelan television.

President Hugo Chavez declared “Venezuela is in mourning” and called for a full investigation.

The French-made ATR 42-300 carrying 43 passengers and three crew members crashed on Thursday at an altitude of 13,500 feet in an area known as Los Conejos plateau within the Sierra La Culata National Park, officials said.

The plane went down about 9.5km from the airport in the Andean city of Merida, where the Santa Barbara Airlines flight departed for Caracas, Gen Vinas said.

The control tower received no communication from the pilot after takeoff, according to Jorge Alvarez, president of the small domestic carrier Santa Barbara.

Three helicopters were sent to the crash site, where winds made it tricky to drop off emergency workers, said Gen Antonio Rivero, head of Venezuela’s emergency management agency.

Relatives and friends of the victims gathered in tears at Simon Bolivar International Airport near Caracas.

“We join in the profound pain of all the relatives of our passengers and co-workers,” the airline said in a statement. It pledged to cooperate fully with investigators.

Aircraft manufacturer ATR, based in Toulouse, said specialists from the company and the French Accident Bureau were leaving immediately to assist in a probe.

Meanwhile, a ferryboat wreck on the Amazon River killed at least 14 people, Brazilian officials said yesterday, as crews searched for several more people reported missing and feared dead.

The Almirante Monteiro ferry, carrying more than 100 people, sank on Thursday after colliding with a barge loaded with fuel tanks near Itacoatiara, Amazonas.

Eight children were among the dead. Ninety-two people were rescued, but officials said they did not know the exact number of people on board.