Venezuelan investigators picked through the shattered wreckage of a plane that crashed with 160 people on board, trying to determine what caused the engines to fail and sent the jet plunging from the sky in the country's deadliest air disaster in history.
The pilot radioed authorities saying both engines had failed and requested permission for an emergency landing Tuesday shortly before the West Caribbean Airways plane plummeted to the ground, killing all aboard, officials said.
Seats, pillows, and smoldering wreckage were strewn across a pasture dotted with trees among cattle ranches near the border with Colombia. The plane's tail jutted from the ground.
Somber-faced rescue workers collected body parts and pieces of bone amid bloodstained clothes that lay near charred trees.
The crash was the deadliest in Venezuelan history, according to the Aviation Safety Network, a nonprofit group that keeps a database of air disasters. It said the death toll surpassed a 1969 crash in Venezuela that killed 155, including 71 victims on the ground.
"I was struck by all of the victims and the massive destruction," rescue worker Jose Pena said.
Search teams recovered one of the jet's black boxes, which could give clues to the crash's cause, said Air Force Major Javier Perez, the search and rescue chief. He said the cockpit voice recorder had not been found.
As the plane developed problems hours before dawn Tuesday, the Colombian pilot radioed a nearby airport in Maracaibo requesting permission to descend from 10,100m to 4,200m, Venezuelan Interior Minister Jesse Chacon said.
Investigators believe the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 fell into a steep descent minutes later, plunging about 2,130m a minute before slamming into the ground, Chacon said.
Residents reported hearing an explosion when the plane went down east of the Sierra de Perija mountains near Machiques, about 650km west of Caracas.
The jet was carrying 152 tourists from Martinique, including a 21-month-old infant, returning home after a week in Panama, officials said. All eight Colombian crew members were killed.
At Martinique's airport, relatives broke down in sobs as a lawmaker read out victims' names. In the town of Ducos, where about 30 victims reportedly lived, some 150 distraught friends and relatives gathered outside city hall.
"I don't understand. It's as though the sky fell on my head today," said Claire Renette, 40, whose sister was among the dead.
Some passengers were descendants of island workers who helped build the Panama Canal a century ago, said Alina Guerrero, a spokeswoman for Panama's Foreign Ministry.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS