Plane taking off crashes in Cuba; only 3 of 110 people aboard survive impact, resulting fire

Rescue workers gather Friday at the site near the Havana airport where a Cuban airliner plummeted into a cassava field and caught fire.
Rescue workers gather Friday at the site near the Havana airport where a Cuban airliner plummeted into a cassava field and caught fire.

HAVANA -- A 39-year-old airliner with 110 people aboard crashed and burned in a cassava field just after taking off from the Havana airport Friday, leaving three survivors in Cuba's worst aviation disaster in three decades, officials said.

The Boeing 737 went down just after noon a short distance from the end of the runway at Jose Marti International Airport while on a short-hop flight to the eastern city of Holguin. Firefighters rushed to extinguish the flames that engulfed the field of debris created where Cubana Flight 972 hit the ground.

"There is a high number of people who appear to have died," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said from the scene.

Relatives of those aboard were ushered into a private area at the terminal to await word on their loved ones.

"My daughter is 24, my God, she's only 24!" cried Beatriz Pantoja, whose daughter Leticia was on the plane.

State TV said the jet veered sharply to the right after takeoff, and Diaz-Canel said a special commission had been formed to investigate the cause of the crash.

Skies were overcast and rainy at the airport at the time of the crash, with winds reportedly around 4 mph.

Authorities said there were 104 passengers and six crew members on the flight operated by the Cuban state airline. Mexican authorities said the Boeing 737-201 was built in 1979 and rented by Cubana from Aerolineas Damojh, a small charter company that also goes by the name Global Air.

A statement from the country's Transportation Department identified the pilot and co-pilot as Capt. Jorge Luis Nunez Santos and first officer Miguel Angel Arreola Ramirez. It said the flight attendants were Maria Daniela Rios, Abigail Hernandez Garcia and Beatriz Limon. Global Air said maintenance worker Marco Antonio Lopez Perez was also aboard.

In addition to the Mexican crew, Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma reported that the passengers were mostly Cubans plus five foreigners from countries it did not identify. Argentina's Foreign Ministry said two of its citizens had died in the crash.

Mexican aviation authorities said a team of experts would fly to Cuba today to take part in the investigation.

In November 2010 a Global Air flight originating in Mexico City made an emergency landing in Puerto Vallarta because its front landing gear did not deploy.

Cubana has had a generally good safety record but is notorious for delays and cancellations and has taken many of its planes out of service because of maintenance problems in recent months, prompting it to hire charter aircraft from other companies.

Cuban First Vice President Salvador Valdes Mesa had met with Cubana officials Thursday to discuss improvements to its service. The airline blames its spotty record on a lack of parts and airplanes because of the U.S. trade embargo against the communist-run country.

Four crash survivors were taken to a Havana hospital, and three remained alive as of midafternoon Friday, hospital director Martinez Blanco told Cuban state TV.

There was no word of other survivors by Friday evening.

The last deadly accident involving a Cubana-operated plane was in 1989, when a charter flight from Havana to Milan, Italy, crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 126 people on board and at least two dozen on the ground.

Information for this article was contributed by Amy Guthrie of The Associated Press.

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AP/ENRIQUE DE LA OSA

Emergency workers and others gather Friday where a 39-year-old jetliner carrying 110 people crashed right after taking off from Jose Marti International Airport outside Havana. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel (bottom, second from left) said “a high number of people” appear to have been killed in the crash. Officials said only three people survived.

A Section on 05/19/2018

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