A Cuban state airways plane with 110 passengers and crew on board crashed shortly post the flight taking off from Havana, which consequences, in the killing of all but three people on board in a mass of twisted and ablaze fuselage on the fire.
The Cuban state media reported that 3 ladies, though, had been pulled alive from the mangled wreckage but they are all in critical condition and situated in the hospital.
They were the only known survivors from the nearly 40-year-old Boeing 737, operated by Cubana de Aviacion. The plane was crashed into a field close to a wooded area near Jose Marti airport, which sends a thick column of pungent smoke into the air.
The 110 people aboard, consists of the, 6 Mexican crew, said the Mexico-based company that leased the plane, Global Air, is also regarded as the Aerolineas Damojh.
2 victims were Argentine, the nation’s foreign ministry told. Most of the others were Cuban, as per the state media.
Carrying around, 104 passengers, the plane, was almost completely destroyed in the crash and succeeding fire.
The Firefighters raced to the scene along with a fleet of ambulances which put out the blaze, as emergency personnel combed via the wreckage.
This appeared to be one of the wings of the plane was wedged surrounded by scorched tree trunks, but the main fuselage which was completely destroyed.
Miguel Diaz-Canel, The President of Cuba, who visited the scene, told to an investigation which has been opened into the disaster, and this also displays that this can make a public as soon as possible because this one is a deadly mishap.
A press conference was scheduled for 1900 GMT on Saturday.
The 58-year-old president, who succeeded Raul Castro as the communist island’s leader in the month of Aril, just, appeared aghast as he surveyed the recovery efforts, wearing a short-sleeved green shirt and surrounded by some other officials.
He said in an investigation regarding the reason of the mishap which is now underway.
Cuba declared two days of national mourning.
Raul Castro sent condolences to families of the victims of the “catastrophic mishap,” a statement read and said, Vladimir Putin, as the Russian President and a string of Latin American leaders also shows their mercy and the sympathy.
Airport sources told regarding the plane took off at 12.08pm (1608 GMT) heading for the eastern city of Holguin, 670 kilometers away.
From the supermarket where he works near the airport, Jose Luis, 49, stated that he actually saw the flight taking off before it banked and plunged to the ground. “I saw it taking off. All of a sudden, it made a turn and went down. We were all amazed,” he said.
Yasniel Diaz, a 21-year-old musician, also told about the pilot appeared in order to attempt an emergency landing, but the plane just crashed instantly.
“The explosion shook everything,” he said.
“I started running, I was so afraid.”
Images from Cuban television display that the rescue workers at the scene removing what appeared to be a survivor on a stretcher and the rain also start falling down.
The Global Air said the plane was flying with a crew of six Mexicans — the pilot, co-pilot, three flight entourage which also maintenance technician.
In Mexico City, angry relatives and colleagues of the crew gathered outside the company’s offices which also demanding information — some of them hugging and crying.
“I was friends with the captain, with the co-pilot, with the head flight attendant,” said a former Global Air employee, 44-year-old Ana Marlene Covarrubias.
“When I heard the news on the phone, I thought it was one of those jokes people play,” she told AFP.
Mexico said it had sent two civil aviation specialists also in order to help the investigation.
The Mexican communications and transportation ministry stated that the plane was built in 1979. Global Air had the necessary permits which lease it and had passed inspections in November 2017, also.
The company, formed in 1990, had a fleet of 3 planes, all Boeing 737s.
Amid to the Friday’s crash, Cuba’s most recent air mishap happened in April 2017, when eight military personnel died when a Russian-made AN-26 transport aircraft goes down in western Cuba.
The nation’s last major airline disaster happened in November 2010 when a Cuban Aerocaribbean jet crashed on a flight from Santiago de Cuba to Havana, which results in the killing of the 68 people on board, including 28 foreigners.
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