107 die after jet crashes just after takeoff
HAVANA — A 39year- 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 shorthop flight to the eastern city of Holguin. Firefighters rushed to extinguish the flames that engulfed the field of debris left where Cubana Flight 972 hit the ground.
“There is a high number of people who appear to have died,” Cuban President Miguel DiazCanel said from the scene. “Things have been organized, the fire has been put out, and the remains are being identified.”
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.
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.
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. The fire was quickly extinguished, and none of the 104 people aboard were injured. That plane was a 737 first put into service in 1975.
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.
Four crash survivors were taken to a Havana hospital, and three remained alive as of midafternoon, hospital director Martinez Blanco told Cuban state TV.
State media reports stopped short of openly declaring the rest on board were dead, but there was no word of other survivors by Friday evening.