Airline crash in Venezuela kills 160
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-17 09:08

"PRACTICALLY NOTHING LEFT"

Venezuelan rescuers in surgical masks waded knee-deep in mud and water searching for bodies in fields where the plane went down. The aircraft scattered into small parts of fuselage after plowing into the earth; its tail was left standing alone, according to a Reuters photographer at the site.

"It's really terrible, I can't describe it, there are bodies mutilated, in pieces, there is practically nothing left out there," local mayor Alfonso Marquez told television reporters by telephone.

Farm workers told local television they had seen the aircraft in flames before it hit the ground.

By midday, rescue workers had pulled 56 bodies from the charred remains of the aircraft, said Col. Antonio Rivero, head of Civil Protection agency.

It was the second crash involving a West Caribbean Airway plane this year.

French Transport Minister Dominique Perben said the airplane was inspected recently and no problems were noted.

"This aircraft, which since May has landed several times on French territory, was twice checked by the local services of the French civil aviation authority DGAC.

West Caribbean is based in the Colombian city of Medellin and operates two McDonnell Douglas MD-81s, an MD-82, two Airbus ATR42s and several smaller aircraft.

In March, a West Caribbean Airways Let L-410 aircraft departing from Providencia, Colombia, failed to ascend and hit hills close to the runway. Two crew and six passengers died in that accident.

The MD-82 aircraft, delivered to its first operator in 1986, passed a safety check by Colombian authorities on Monday. But the airline has been penalized before for excessive weight and other violations, a Colombian aviation official said.

French President Jacques Chirac learned "with very deep emotion of the terrible air disaster which occurred in Venezuela and in which a very great number of victims were French," his office said in a statement.

Martinique is an overseas department of France. Chirac's office said the president had ordered Overseas Territories Minister Francois Baroin to travel to Martinique.

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