9 dead in Bolivia plane crash

2011-09-09 10:26

La Paz - Rescuers in Bolivia found no survivors in the wreckage of a small plane that went missing earlier this week and crashed with nine people aboard, the country's aviation authority said on Thursday.

The Aerocon airline plane was carrying seven passengers and two crew on a flight from the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz to Trinidad in the country's northeast when it vanished from radar on Tuesday.

"Rescuers reached the crash site in the afternoon and confirmed that there were no accident survivors," the Bolivian General Aeronautics Directorate (DGAC) said in a statement.

The wreckage of the plane was found 30km northeast of the city of Trinidad, in the Amazon jungle province of Beni, said Aerocon spokesperson Nelson Kinn.

One of the passengers killed in the crash was Ecuadoran and another was Colombian, Kinn said, correcting an earlier statement from the airline saying that both were Colombians.

Defence Minister Cecilia Chacon, who is heading the rescue efforts, told reporters that rescuers were transporting the bodies to the provincial capital Trinidad, a city of about 130 000 in the Bolivian Amazon basin some 600km northeast of La Paz.

Local media earlier reported that the plane was just 16km from Trinidad when air traffic controllers lost track of it.

- AFP