Rescuers search jungle after plane crash

Rescuers scoured an Amazon jungle marsh today, searching for more bodies as they sifted through the wreckage of a Peruvian airliner that crashed while making an emergency landing in a hailstorm, killing at least 41 people.

Authorities said that at least 57 of the 100 people on board TANS Peru Flight 204 survived the crash yesterday afternoon when the pilot, seeking to soften the impact, tried to make an emergency landing in the marsh during a fierce storm.

Instead, the Boeing 737-200 split in two about 20 miles shy of its destination, the jungle city of Pucallpa, said Edwin Vasquez, president of the Ucayali region where the city is located. It was world’s fifth major airline accident this month.

Search teams have recovered the plane’s cockpit voice recorder.

In Lima, from where the aircraft departed, relatives of the passengers and crew members gathered at the capital’s airport to board a special flight Pucallpa. But not all were allowed to board.

Jose Reyna, 30, said he had come with three siblings, hoping to say his farewell to his father, Jose Lino Reyna, 57, a medical technician who perished in the crash. But only one of his brothers was allowed to travel.

“My father died and they have identified him. They recognised him by his clothes and his mobile phone. I imagine that he is disfigured,” said Reyna.

Some survivors said they escaped the burning wreckage of the plane in a hailstorm and waded through knee-deep mud to get away.

Police Lt. David Mori said 41 dead passengers had been recovered from the plane and 56 people were being treated at hospitals. Rescue workers had to suspend searches for bodies in the wreckage due to darkness and bad weather overnight.

“There were people who walked away from the crash uninjured,” Mori said. “It’s not very clear how many.”

Arevalo said the number of confirmed survivors was 57.

Among the dead were at least three foreigners – an American woman, an Italian man, and a Colombian woman, Mori said.

Many of the bodies could not immediately be identified and at least three people were still missing, he said.

The plane circled the airport, then crashed near a highway, according to officials and radio reports. Before the crash, the pilot radioed that he could not land because of strong winds and torrential rains, airport receptionist Norma Pasquel said.

“I felt a strong impact and a light and fire and felt I was in the middle of flames around the cabin, until I saw to a my left a hole to escape through,” survivor Yuri Salas said.

“Two other people were struggling to get out and I also was able to.”

He said he heard another person shouting to him to keep advancing because the plane was going to explode.

“The fire was fierce despite the storm,” he said. “Hail was falling and the mud came up to my knees.”

Canal N television broadcast photos of survivors being carried on stretchers from a grassy field strewn with wreckage.

Jorge Belevan, a spokesman for TANS, said the plane was on a domestic flight carrying 92 passengers and eight crew members and was attempting an emergency landing when it crashed near Pucallpa, 305 miles north-east of Lima.

“The plane did not crash. It did not fall. The plane made an emergency landing,” Belevan said, adding that it did not appear the crash was caused by a technical failure in the 22-year-old aircraft.

“The preliminary information we have is that the accident could have been caused by wind shear,” he said.

Wind shear is a sudden change in wind speed or direction. The most dangerous kind, called a microburst, is caused by air descending from a thunderstorm.

Tomas Ruiz, another passenger, said: “It seems it was a matter of the weather. Ten minutes before we were to land in Pucallpa, the plane began to shake a lot.”

Pope Benedict XVI said today he was praying for the victims of the crash as well as those grieving for the tragedy.

The pope offers prayers “for the eternal rest of the dead and offers fervent prayers so that the Lord grants solace to those who are weeping over the lamentable tragedy,” said a telegram of condolence sent by the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.