Xi extends condolences to Duterte over tragedy

President Xi Jinping on Tuesday sent a message of condolence to his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte over the crash of a Philippine military plane.

In his message, Xi said he was shocked to learn about the crash on Sunday on Jolo Island in Sulu Province, which caused heavy casualties.

On behalf of the Chinese government and people, Xi extended profound condolences over the deaths and conveyed heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved families and the injured.

A C-130 Hercules transport plane, carrying 96 people, mostly fresh army graduates, overshot the runway on Sunday and crashed into a coconut grove, killing 53 people, including 50 soldiers on the aircraft and three civilians on the ground.

Another 50 people, mostly troops, were injured. Many suffered severe burns when the four-engine aircraft exploded into flames.

On Tuesday, according to Lieutenant General Corleto Vinluan, chief of the Western Mindanao Command, security forces had retrieved the cockpit voice and flight data recorders of the aircraft.

The cockpit voice and flight data recorders, which are known as black boxes, will be sent to the United States for analysis, the senior military commander said.

They could explain what caused the C-130, which the military said was in “very good condition”, to crash in sunny weather.

Sunday’s crash was one of the country’s worst military aviation disasters and the latest in a series of accidents this year.

Last month, a Black Hawk helicopter went down during a nighttime training flight, killing all six on board. The accident prompted the grounding of the country’s entire Black Hawk fleet.