Plane crashes in Venezuela, 160 dead
August 16, 2005 -- A commercial airliner with at least
160 people aboard crashed in western Venezuela early Tuesday after reporting engine trouble. The Medellin, Colombia-based West Caribbean Airways SA jet was en route to Martinique from Panama when it came down in the Sierra de Perija on the Venezuelan-Colombian
border.
"The firefighters who responded to the crash have confirmed that there were no survivors" among the 152 passengers and eight crew members aboard the flight from Panama to Martinique,
said Colonel Carlos Montealegre, the head of Colombia's civil aviation agency.
Colombian civil aviation officials in Bogota said the jet, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, had made a distress call at around 02:00.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Jesse Chacon said that the pilot had reported trouble with both engines and that the plane was losing height at a rate of about 2 100m a minute.
The plane — an MD82, made by McDonnell Douglas — crashed 20 miles east of Venezuela's border with Colombia, according to the radio report.
Most of the passengers were French and Colombian civil aviation officials said the crew were all Colombian.
The jet crashed in the Sierra de Perija mountains between the districts of La Cucharita and La Negra.
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