Seven dead as army plane crashes into house

An army plane slammed into an apartment building in an upmarket neighbourhood of Ecuador's mountainous capital, killing five people aboard the aircraft and two more on the ground.

The plane grazed a house before ploughing into the four-storey building in Quito yesterday, sending black smoke into the evening sky and filling a garden with the aircraft's wreckage.

Witness Eric Samson said a thick mist shrouded the neighbourhood at the time, though the cause of the crash was unknown.

"It was horrible. I heard the plane flying very low, then I heard the explosion," neighbour Camille Avfert said. "We ran out on to the street and saw fire."

Quito fire chief Atahualpa Sanchez said emergency crews recovered the victims' badly burned bodies, while rescuers evacuated injured people.

The army said three soldiers on the plane died: the pilot, a major; the co-pilot, a lieutenant; and the mechanic. In a statement, it said the pilot's wife and son were also killed.

The Red Cross reported that two more people on the ground died, including a woman identified as Elena Reascos, the mother of a nine-year-old boy.

"I was with my mother in the house when I heard something crash and there was an explosion," the boy, Said Arguello, said earlier.

"The flames were everywhere. I couldn't get out of my room and the firefighters rescued me."

Red Cross official Henry Ochoa told broadcaster Ecuavisa that seven bodies had been found, but "there may be another person or more underneath the fuselage".

Defence minister Javier Ponce said the US-made Beechcraft army plane was on a training run when it crashed at about 5.30pm local time (10.30pm Irish time) as it approached Quito's airport from Manta, 160 miles to the south east.

The aircraft went down about 2.5 miles from the airport on a street where four other planes crashed during the 1990s.

Gonzalez Suarez Avenue, with luxurious buildings up to 15 storeys tall, is along the path of descending planes as they prepare to land in Quito.

The north-side neighbourhood is also home to the US ambassador's residence, though the crash occurred some distance away and an embassy spokeswoman said the ambassador was not hurt.

Ecuador's president Rafael Correa visited the site to learn details of the crash.