Trio pulled from plane

110 killed in Cuban crash

THE only three survivors of Cuba’s worst aviation disaster in three decades were clinging to life Saturday, a day after their passenger jet crashed in a fireball in Havana’s rural outskirts with 113 people on board.

In the first official death toll provided by authorities, Transportation Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez said 110 had died including five children.

He also announced that a flight recorder from the plane had been located.

Carlos Alberto Martinez, director of Havana’s Calixto Garcia Hospital where the survivors were being treated, said doctors are always hopeful that their patients will recover, but he acknowledged that the three Cuban women were in extremely grave condition.

“We must be conscious that they present severe injuries,” Mr Martinez said. “They are in a critical state.”

Cuban officials identified the women as Mailen Diaz, 19, of Holguin; Grettel Landrove, 23, of Havana; and Emiley Sanchez, 39, of Holguin.

Mr Martinez said Ms Sanchez was conscious and communicating, Ms Diaz was conscious and sedated and Ms Landrove was in a coma.

Ms Landrove’s mother, Amparo Font, told reporters that her daughter is a flamenco dancer and engineering student on the verge of graduation.

“My daughter is an angel,” Mrs Font said. “They have to save her.”

Investigators have started the process of piecing together why the ageing Boeing 737 went down and erupted in flames shortly after takeoff early Friday afternoon.

Yzquierdo said those on board included 102 Cubans, three tourists, two foreign residents and six crew members, who were from Mexico.

Maite Quesada, a member of the Cuban Council of Churches, announced that 20 pastors from an evangelical church were among the dead.

Skies were overcast and rainy at the airport at the time of Cuba’s third major air accident since 2010

State television said the 39year-old jet veered sharply to the right after departing on a domestic flight to the eastern city of Holguin.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said a special commission had been formed to find the cause of the crash.