Gordon Werner

Ecuador plane crashes with 92 aboard

January 28, 2002 Posted: 3:59 PM EST (2059 GMT)

QUITO, Ecuador (CNN) -- An Ecuadorean airplane carrying 92 people crashed Monday as it approached the northern city of Tulcan on the Colombian border, said a spokeswoman for TAME, Ecuador's national airline.

There was no word on survivors.

The plane crashed in Ipiales, Colombia, which is in a rebel-controlled area, said TAME spokeswoman Toa Quirola.

The Boeing 727-100 departed Quito at about 10 a.m. ET en route to the northern Ecuadorean city of Tulcan, on the Colombian border, before continuing to its final destination, Cali, Colombia.

The pilot's last radio contact, minutes before the plane was scheduled to land in Tulcan at 11 a.m., did not indicate any problems, airline officials said.

Quirola said there were 83 passengers, seven crew members and two of the airline's technical and operations personnel on board the plane.

In April 1998, a Boeing 727-200 leased to TAME airlines crashed into a mountain near Quito three minutes after takeoff, killing all 53 people on board.

Boeing 727s were manufactured from 1964 until 1983.

--Journalists Rodolfo Munoz and Milagros Leono contributed to this report.

on the web:

• Boeing
• TAME, Línea Aérea del Ecuador

Gordon Werner

Wreckage of crashed Ecuador jet found

January 29, 2002 Posted: 11:46 AM EST (1646 GMT)

IPIALES, Colombia (AP) -- Search teams found the wreckage of an Ecuadorean airliner that crashed with 92 people on board near a volcano straddling the Colombia-Ecuador border, an Ecuadorean official said.

It would take rescue workers at least two hours to reach the remote site of the crash near Chiles Volcano near the Ecuadorean border, Minister of Government Marcelo Merlo told reporters in Ecuador's capital, Quito.

Merlo did not say whether there were any survivors. There was no immediate confirmation of the find from Colombian officials.

The TAME airlines Boeing 727-100 from Quito vanished Monday morning over the Andes as it flew through foggy weather. It looped over the Colombian town of Ipiales on its final approach to its destination -- the tiny airport in nearby Ecuadorean border city of Tulcan.

The flight lost radio contact at 10:23 a.m. It was carrying 83 passengers, including seven children, and nine crew members, TAME said.

It was not clear whether the wreckage was found on the Ecuadorean or the Colombian side of the Chiles Volcano, whose 15,668-foot summit lies on the border between the two nations.

Rescue teams from both nations were focusing on the region of the Chiles and another nearby volcano, Nevado de Cumbal.

Witnesses reported hearing a plane flying through the clouds on Monday and then an explosion in the area.

"We felt as though it was flying low, but we couldn't see it because the sky was full of clouds," said Javier Escruceria, a farmer who lives four hours by horseback from Cumbal village, in the shadow of the 15,721-foot Nevado de Cumbal. "It seemed like it had gone down behind the mountain."

After stopping in Tulcan, the flight was to have continued to Cali, Colombia's third-largest city. At the city's airport, distressed relatives awaited news of their loved ones.

"Everyone tells us something different ... but no one knows anything," Adriana Cano said. She said her sister and brother-in-law were passengers.

Three rescue planes and a helicopter combed the area near Ipiales until nightfall Monday but could find no traces of a crash.

Clouds persisted Tuesday and delayed the resumption of the search. At midmorning, a search flight took off from Ecuador, entering Colombia as the crew peered through breaking clouds. In Cumbal, firefighters drove up a misty road into the mountains to try to locate the crash.

A spokeswoman for the Colombian air force, Maj. Angela Rodriguez, said Colombian authorities ruled out a possible guerrilla attack. Rebels have been active in the border area, but there have been no known cases of the guerrillas trying to down an airliner in Colombia's 38-year war.

This was the second crash in the border region this month.

A plane from Ecuador's state-owned oil company carrying 26 people crashed on a jungle-covered hillside in Colombian territory January 17 while heading from Quito to Lago Agrio, 10 miles northeast of Quito.

In April 1998, an Air France Boeing 727 leased by TAME crashed in Bogota, Colombia, killing all 53 people aboard. The plane had been warned by air traffic controllers that it was off course.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.