160 killed in Martinique-bound plane crash

A rescue worker searches 16 August, 2005 amid the
wreckage of a Colombian West Caribbean plane that
crashed early in the morning in the mountains of
western Venezuela killing all 160 people on board.
AFP PHOTO/Diario LA VERDAD VENEZUELA OUT 

Rescue workers carry a body on a stretcher among
the debris of the West Caribbean airplane.
AFP PHOTO/ LA VERDAD VENEZUELA OUT 

Video image of people arriving at Lamentin airport in
Martinique after news that West Caribbean Airways
Flight WC707 had crashed in Venezuela, carrying 153
passengers, all French residents of Martinique.
AFP PHOTO / LCI / RFO 

by Rafael Noboa

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

CARACAS, Venezuela (AFP): A Colombian jet carrying French tourists crashed Tuesday in the mountains of western Venezuela killing all 160 people on board, officials said.

The West Caribbean Airways plane, flying from Panama to the French Caribbean island of Martinique, came down in a remote area of the Sierra de Perija mountains after suffering engine problems, officials said.

One of the "black box" flight recorders from the McDonnell-Douglas MD-82 jet was found as rescuers started recovering bodies of the 152 passengers and eight Colombian crew from the hillside in Zulia state, on the frontier with Colombia, officials said.

"A great quantity of bodies have been evacuated," said Major Javier Perez Pacheco, the head of Venezuela's Search and Rescue Service. "There is no evidence that people are alive."

Venezuela's Interior Ministry said it would take two more days to recover all the bodies, which were being taken to the city of Maracaibo in northwestern Venezuela where a makeshift morgue was set up in a university.

It was the second accident in five months involving the Colombian airline. The low-cost carrier, launched in 1998, is also in financial trouble with six million dollars in debt that it has said it would pay off by next year.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Jesse Chacon said the West Caribbean jet crashed between 3:30 am and 3:45 am (0730 GMT and 0745 GMT), after the pilot had reported trouble with both engines.

The jet had taken off from Tocumen International Airport near Panama City taking tourists back to the French overseas department.

Chacon said the pilot reported trouble with an engine and asked for permission to land in Venezuela, but minutes later the second engine also failed.

Then the plane "started to fall at a speed of 7,000 feet (2,100 metres) a minute," the minister said on state television.

Inhabitants of the town of Machique reported seeing an explosion in the mountains. "What I saw was an enormous ball of fire that was falling and falling until you could hear a loud explosion," one witness told local radio. Officials could not confirm that the jet was on fire when it crashed.

French authorities said the plane was carrying 153 French citizens, while Colombian officials and the airline said there were 152 passengers, including one child, and eight Colombian crew members.

The airline said one of the French tourists, who was not named, did not turn up for the flight.

French President Jacques Chirac said he was "deeply saddened" by the accident, which he called a "shocking catastrophe."

The plane's co-pilot, David Munoz, was only 21 but had flown 1,000 hours, according to his father Elkin Munoz.

"My son always told us that he flew with confidence because these planes were cared for," Elkin Munoz told Radio Caracol. "I spoke with him last night and he was confident, as usual."

In Paris, French Transport Minister Dominique Perben said the plane had been checked twice this year by authorities in Martinique who did not detect any problems.

West Caribbean Airways was founded in 1998 as a charter airline, but it was bought by a group of Colombian businessmen in 2001 and re-launched as a low-cost carrier based in the city of Medellin.
A spokeswoman for the carrier told AFP it would suspend all flights by the end of the week to devote resources to dealing with the crash.

Reports it filed with transportation authorities in Bogota last month show that the carrier, which has a subsidiary in Costa Rica, had accumulated a debt of six million dollars, or 97 cents for every dollar earned.

The airline had three jets, including the McDonnell-Douglas MD-82 that crashed, and two MD-81s. It also had several Czech Let-410 and Franco-Italian ATR-42 turboprops.

In March, another of its planes, a Let-410, crashed minutes after taking off from Colombia's Providencia island, killing the two crew and six of the 12 passengers. That crash is still under investigation.

In July, West Caribbean suspended its flights for a week after US aircraft maker Boeing asked that the airline conduct maintenance work on its fleet, according to a Colombian civil aviation official.

Tuesday's crash is the fourth plane accident this month.

A Cypriot Boeing 737 crashed Sunday near Athens in Greece, killing all 121 people on board; a Tunisian-chartered ATR-42 dived into the sea off Sicily on August 6, killing 16 people; and an Air France Airbus A340 crashed on landing in Toronto on August 2. All 309 passengers and crew survived.

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