Plane with 68 onboard crashes in Cuba
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A passenger plane crashed in central Cuba on Thursday night, killing all 68 people onboard, the Cuban civil aviation authorities said.
The ATR-72 twin turboprop plane of the state-run Aero Caribbean airline crashed near the town of Guasimal, 355 km east of Havana, in the central Sancti Spiritus province, the Civil Aeronautics Institute of Cuba (IACC) said.
There were no survivors, the IACC said in a statement.
The Flight 883, with 61 passengers and seven crew members including 28 foreigners onboard, was flying to Havana from the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba.
The plane issued an emergency call before it lost contact with the control tower at 5:42 p.m. local time (2242 GMT).
Among the foreigners onboard were three Dutch nationals, two Germans, two Austrians, one French, one Italian, one Spaniard, one Japanese, nine Argentines, seven Mexicans and a Venezuelan, the IACC said.
The official website Cubadebate.cu said that one body has been recovered.
Witnesses said the airliner burst into a fireball, adding that rescuers had to use a bulldozer to access the mountainous area where the plane crashed.
The ATR-72, a French-Italian made aircraft, is mainly used for regional flights and short trips.
That kind of plane has a maximum capacity of 68 passengers and a range of up to 1,195 kilometers.
An emergency committee has been formed to investigate the accident.
Arrivals of other domestic flights were suspended as tropical storm Thomas was appraoching eastern Cuba.
An Il-18 plane of the Aero Caribbean airline crashed in Mount Isabel de Torres in the Dominican Republic in 1992, killing all 34 people onboard.
The Aero Caribbean operates scheduled domestic passenger services to four domestic destinations and international services, as well as charter flights mainly within the Caribbean and South America.
International flights in the country are mainly offered by Cubana Airlines, the main Cuban airline.
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