Johannesburg

Thursday

Showers late. Afternoon clouds. Cool.

8°C
18°C

7 day forecasts

Plane 'a ball of fire'

2005-08-16 21:11

Caracas - The Colombian plane that crashed in Venezuelan mountains on Tuesday plummeted like a huge ball of fire before slamming into the ground and exploding, killing the 160 people aboard, said a witness.

Rescuers removed bodies from the wreckage of the West Caribbean Airways plane in northwestern Venezuela in the hours after the disaster.

"You can see burned bodies," said a civil protection official at the crash. "It is very depressing because there are no survivors."

A witness described watching the plane drop to the ground.

"What I saw was an enormous ball of fire that was falling and falling until you could hear a loud explosion," the witness told local radio.

Venezuelan national civil defence director Antonio Rivero described the crash site as a "horrific scene" with smoke billowing from the wreckage.

"It is a disaster zone," he said.

Crashed just before dawn

Venezuelan and Colombian firefighters and soldiers were at the scene, where at least 56 bodies had been recovered, Rivero said.

The bodies will be flown by helicopter to the northwestern city of Maracaibo, where they will be identified, said the head of Venezuela's search and rescue service, Major Javier Perez Pacheco.

The McDonnell-Douglas MD-82 jet crashed just before dawn on Tuesday after the pilot reported engine trouble.

The plane was flying from Panama to the French Caribbean island of Martinique.

The victims were returning to Martinique after holidaying in Panama, said a representative of the travel agency that booked the flight to Fort de France, Martinique.

French authorities said the plane was carrying 153 French citizens from Martinique, while Colombian officials and the airline said there were 152 passengers and eight Colombian crew.

It was the second accident in five months involving the Colombian airline.

In March, another of its planes, a Let-410, crashed minutes after taking off from Colombia's Providencia Island, killing the two crew and six of the 12 passengers.

That crash is still under investigation.

- AFP

inside news24

Cpt: 8-10°C Sprinkles early. Partly cloudy. Cool. Pta: 10-17°C Tstorms late. Afternoon clouds. Cool.
Jhb: 8-18°C Showers late. Afternoon clouds. Cool. Bloem: 7-17°C Morning clouds. Cool.
Dbn: 13-19°C More sun than clouds. Cool. PE: 10-13°C More clouds than sun. Cool.
7 day forecasts...
Western Cape Eastern Cape Kwazulu Natal Gauteng

Stellenbosch - 18:46:22 PM Accident at the Kayamandi Bridge More traffic reports...

Here are the winning Lotto numbers from the Wednesday, November 11 draw.

7 15 19 22 25 26 bonus 4

11 15 23 26 29 38 bonus 48

SMS the word Lotto to 31222 to get lotto numbers sent directly to your phone. The service costs just R10 per month. 
More lotto numbers...

Jobs - Find your dream job

Lead SOA Architect

Gauteng
Network IT Recruitment

Application Programmer

Gauteng - Pretoria
Kanimambo

Senior Transport Engineer

Free State - Bloemfontein
Budget Recruitment Services

Cars - Search 1000's of new and used cars

AUDI

2008 A4 1.8T Multitronics from R 269 000

VOLKSWAGEN

Polo 1.6 Comfortline 5-dr Tiptronic
2009
R 179,900.00

TOYOTA

Yaris T3 1.3 Plus 5-dr
2008
R 125,990.00

BMW

320i Coupe E92
2009
R 389,900.00

Property - Find a new home

WOODLAND HILLS

Single Residential R3,300,000

LITTLE FALLS

Single Residential R3,300,000

GLENVISTA

Single Residential R4,400,000

Travel - Look, Book, Go!

Free Games - TOO MUCH NEWS? TAKE A BREAK!