CUMBAL, Colombia (REUTERS) — Searchers found the wreckage of an Ecuadorean Boeing 727 strewn across the upper slopes of Colombia’s Cumbal volcano on Tuesday and said all 92 on board had been killed in Monday’s crash.
TAME airlines Flight 120 took off from Ecuador’s capital, Quito, on Monday morning but broke off radio contact as it flew into Colombian territory during a 30-minute flight to the border town of Tulcan over the treacherous Andean mountains.
The plane slammed into the upper reaches of the 15,626-foot volcano as it maneuvered toward Tulcan’s airport in rain and fog, Colombia’s air force said.
“There aren’t any survivors. The passengers were all burned up,” said Alvaro Emilio Bucheli, the mayor of the nearby town of Cumbal.
Two infants and five older children were among the 92 passengers and crew on board. The passengers included two Spaniards, two Italians, one French, one German, one Mexican and one Cuban, said TAME spokeswoman in Ecuador Toa Quirola.
CHARRED BODIES LITTER ICY SLOPES
No bodies were recovered as of nightfall on Tuesday.
Rescue workers who climbed five hours up a steep, brushy mountainside to reach the crash site encountered a macabre scene of destruction and death just 1,000 feet below the summit.
Television images showed parts of the fuselage and passengers’ clothes strewn about the foggy slopes.
Yoli Henriquez, a local health official, said she saw charred bodies and pieces of the plane scattered over hundreds of yards of mountainside.
“There are plane parts tossed all over,” Henriquez told Reuters at a base camp down the mountain, pulling a silver-colored, triangular piece of fuselage from her pocket.
The plane’s wreckage was not located for a full day because of fog and rugged terrain even though emergency crews had immediately focused their search on the Cumbal volcano.
“It looks like the plane lost visibility when it was trying to land at the airport and it ran into the range,” said Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco, chief of Colombia’s air force.
Peasants, who had heard a loud explosion on Monday, climbed up to the crash site. Some showed local television passports and keys, which they said they had recovered from the mountainside.
RELATIVES DISTRAUGHT BY NEWS
In Quito, relatives who had waited for news of their loved ones sobbed and hugged each other as they heard of the disaster.
“This can’t be happening!” an elderly women screamed, covering her face with a white handkerchief.
Flight 120 was the second Ecuadorean aircraft to go down in Colombia in the past two weeks. A plane operating for state oil company Petroecuador disappeared on Jan. 17 on its way to the Amazon city of Lago Agrio.
Rescuers spent six days scouring the dense jungle in heavy rain for the twin-engine Fairchild plane, which was found dashed to pieces three miles inside Colombia. All 26 people on board were killed.
