Havana - More than 100 people were killed
when a Boeing 737 crashed soon after taking off from Havana in
what appeared to be Cuba's worst air disaster in nearly 30
years, and there were only three survivors, officials and state
media said on Friday.
The passenger plane, on a domestic flight to Holguin in
eastern Cuba, crashed at 12:08pm (1608 GMT). There were 105
passengers, including five children, plus crew members, state
media reported.
Five of the passengers and the crew were foreign, according
to media reports. Two Argentine citizens and an unspecified
number of Mexicans were among the dead, the Argentine and
Mexican governments said.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in broadcast comments that
a high number of people appeared to have been killed. He said
the fire from the crash had been extinguished and authorities
were identifying bodies.
Diaz-Canel said authorities were investigating the cause of
the crash.
Cuba declared an official period of mourning from 6am on
May 19 to 12pm on May 20, during which the flag would be
flown at half-mast outside state and military institutions.
Former Cuban president Raul Castro, who now heads the
country's ruling Communist Party, offered his condolences to the
families of those who died in the crash as he recovered from a
hernia operation, State media reported
This was the first time Cuba reported on a health issue for
Castro, 86, who last month handed over the reins of power to his
right-hand man Diaz-Canel.
Castro "who is recovering satisfactorily from a recent
planned surgery to get rid of a hernia is staying up to date on
the situation and has given the relevant guidance," the
Communist Party newspaper Granma reported.
Blackened wreckage of Flight CU972 was strewn over the crash
site, 20km south of Havana.
"We heard an explosion and then saw a big cloud of smoke go
up," said Gilberto Menendez, who runs a restaurant near the
crash site in the agricultural area of Boyeros.
The flight's destination, Holguin, is the capital of a
province popular with tourists for its pristine beaches.
Carlos Alberto Martinez, director of Havana's Calixto Garcia
hospital, told Reuters that four victims of the crash had been
were brought there and one died. Three others, all women, were
in a serious condition, he said.
"She is alive but very burnt and swollen," said one of the
women's relatives at the hospital.
The Mexican transport department said on its website,
"During take-off (the plane) apparently suffered a problem and
dived to the ground."
The Boeing 737-201 aircraft was built in 1979 and leased by
Cuban airline Cubana from a small Mexican company called Damojh,
according to the Mexican government.
Damojh in Mexico said it did not immediately have any more
information. Cubana declined to comment.
Mexico said it would send a team of investigators from its
Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics on Saturday. Most
aircraft accidents take months to investigate.
A US State Department official said the agency was not
aware of any request for US assistance at this time, but the
National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation
Administration had offered to assist in the investigation.
The State Department has spoken with the Cuban ambassador to
offer condolences, the official said.
Boeing Co said in a statement that its technical team
stood "ready to assist as permitted under U.S. law and at the
direction of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and
Cuban authorities." The United States has a decades-old trade
embargo on the island.
Boeing 737 aircraft use engines made by CFM International,
supplier of the world's most-used engines, built by a joint
venture of GE and France's Safran.
On Thursday, Cuba's First Vice President Salvador Valdés
Mesa met with Cubana bosses to discuss public complaints about
its service, according to state-run media, including numerous
cancellations of domestic flights this year and long delays.
Earlier this month, the company was ordered to suspend
flights of its six Russian built AN-158 aircraft, of which most
had reportedly already been grounded, according to state-run
media.
The last fatal crash in Cuba was in 2017, the Aviation
Safety Network said. It was a military flight and all eight on
board were killed. In 2010, a commercial Aero Caribbean plane
crashed in central Cuba and all 68 people on board were killed.
In the worst Cubana disaster, a Soviet-made Ilyushin-62M
passenger plane crashed near Havana in 1989 killing all 126
people on board.