Searchers struggle to find all bodies from Martinique-bound plane crash

Members of a French medical team walk past
refrigerated trucks holding the remains of plane crash
victims 18 August 2005, at the morgue in Maracaibo,
Venezuela. AFP PHOTO/Robert SULLIVAN

by Tibisay Soto

Friday, August 19, 2005

MARACAIBO, Venezuela: French experts on Thursday joined an agonising operation to retrieve and identify victims from a Colombian airliner bound for Martinique that crashed in Venezuela killing 152 French tourists and the eight crew on board.

With the charter airline that ran the flight facing criticism of its safety record, French authorities also announced that their prosecutors would launch a homicide investigation into the crash.
Experts brought refrigeration equipment to transport the bodies back to the French Caribbean island of Martinique and material to boost the slow retrieval and identification of victims. A top Venezuelan official said about eight bodies still had not been found.

All the tourists on the plane and the eight Colombian crew on the West Caribbean Airways MD-82 jet were killed when it crashed in a remote area of northwest Venezuela on Tuesday, after reportedly suffering problems with both engines.

Two days after the crash only four members of the crew and three of the passengers had been formally identified, said the director of pathology for Maracaibo's city morgues, Manuel Castro.

The smell of decomposing bodies was strong at the two morgues being used Thursday and local medical students gave out protective masks at the buildings.

But only 95 percent of the bodies have been recovered from the crash site in marshy terrain near the town of Machiques, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Maracaibo, said Venezuela's director of civil protection Antonio Rivero.

Bodies could not be returned to the families until all have been brought out of the wreckage, he told reporters, adding that two more bodies and other remains had been found Thursday.

"The teams at the scene are going through the zone in minute detail, on the ground and under the water in a marshy zone where there are plants and debris from the plane," Rivero said.

Two special flights were to bring relatives of the dead tourists from Martinique to Maracaibo on Friday and Saturday, officials said.

They were to be accompanied by France's Minister for Overseas Territories, Francois Baroin. The minister was to visit Venezuela on Thursday as well meeting President Hugo Chavez and the country's transport and interior ministers before returning to Martinique.

Teams of psychologists and doctors will be present for the families' arrival, officials said.

In Paris, the justice ministry announced that the state prosecutor in Martinique would open a homicide investigation into the crash. Two investigating judges would be appointed to handle the inquiry.
Much attention is now being focused on West Caribbean, a small Colombian airline that chartered the jet to take the tourists on a week-long holiday to Panama.

The jet was returning to Martinique when it crashed near the Venezuelan city of Machiques killing everyone on board.

Venezuelan officials have said the pilot had reported problems with both engines and asked to make an emergency landing in Venezuela.

West Caribbean suspended all flights on Wednesday and the Colombian military and other companies have taken over its flights. One replacement flight run by the Colombian air force made an emergency landing in Bogota on Thursday after passengers panicked when the plane hit turbulence. No casualties were reported.

In March, a West Caribbean Let-410 turboprop plane crashed minutes after takeoff from the Colombian island of Providencia, killing two crew and six of the 12 passengers.

And the Colombian Association of Civilian Air Pilots said it had repeatedly complained to authorities about the airline.

In July, West Caribbean suspended flights for a week after US aircraft maker Boeing, which took over McDonnell-Douglas in 1997, asked the airline to conduct maintenance work on its fleet, a Colombian civil aviation official said.

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