Chopper crash kills police chief
2008-05-30 08:45
Panama City - At least eleven people, including Chile's chief of police, were killed on Thursday when a helicopter crashed into a building and burst into flames in a busy Panama City neighbourhood, officials said.
Justice Minister Daniel Delgado Diamante told AFP that in the crash "eleven people were killed ... six Chileans and five Panamanians", adding that one of 12 occupants, a Panamanian, had survived.
In Santiago, Chile's Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma confirmed that the fatalities included the head of Chile's national police, Jose Alejandro Bernales, and his wife, as well as four other Chilean officials.
The dead Panamanians included four police officers, said officials, as an investigation into the cause of the crash got under way.
Civil aviation sources said that at least 12 people including three crew members were aboard the aircraft, belonging to Panama's National Air Service.
Fire in building
Delgado said there were no reports of people killed on the ground, but that four people in the area were treated for smoke inhalation and one for shock.
Rescue crews and firefighters were still searching the wreckage and rubble for bodies or possible survivors, as a fire raged in the building.
Bodies covered in blue blankets were visible at the scene of the accident, and several people were rushed to hospital, authorities said.
Eyewitnesses told local media that the helicopter pitched wildly before plunging and starting a fire in the building it hit.
President Martin Torrijos returned immediately from El Salvador where he had been meeting with other Central American leaders and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Torrijos called Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to express his regret for the death of the Chilean officials, who had been in Panama to participate in a UN sponsored conference on terrorism, Rodriguez said.
In Santiago, Bachelet declared three days of national mourning "for the loss of a great man", referring to police chief Bernales.
"We are very shocked, very sad," she said.