Cuba mourns 110 dead in plane crash

Grieving relatives of passengers who perished in Cuba’s worst aviation disaster arrive

to the morgue, in Havana, Cuba, on May 19. (AP) Cuba observed a weekend of national mourning for victims of its worst crash in nearly three decades that killed 110 passengers and crew.

An investigation has been launched into Friday’s crash of the nearly 40-yearold Boeing 737-200 leased to the national carrier Cubana de Aviacion by a Mexican company.

Three women pulled alive from the mangled wreckage and in hospital in critical condition were the only survivors. One of them was conscious and asked for something to drink, the hospital treating them said.

The Boeing crashed shortly after taking off from Havana, coming down in a field near the airport and sending a thick column of acrid smoke into the air.

The circumstances echoed those of Cubana de Aviacion’s worst air disaster nearly 30 years ago, in September 1989, when an Ilyushin 62 plane crashed on takeoff from Havana as it was headed to Italy. That disaster killed all 126 people on the plane, mainly Italian tourists, as well as around 45 people on the ground.

In Friday’s crash, the plane was on a domestic flight from Havana to the eastern city of Holguin. Most of the 104 passengers were Cuban, with five foreigners, including two Argentines, among them.

The plane was almost completely destroyed in the crash and subsequent fire. What appeared to be one of the aircraft’s wings was wedged among scorched tree trunks, but almost nothing remained of the main fuselage.

Cuba’s Transport Minister Adel Yzquierdo told reporters one of the plane’s two black boxes had been recovered in “good condition,” and the other was likely to be found within hours. Their data will be key to determining what happened.

Among the dead were 99 Cubans, six Mexican crewmembers, and five foreign tourists: two from Western Sahara, a Mexican tourist and an Argentine couple. A previous toll counted three survivors out of 110 passengers. (AFP)