10 Bodies in Antarctic Crash Found

Chilean air force officers recovered the bodies of eight American globe-trotters and two Chilean crewmen killed when their chartered plane crashed into an Antarctic glacier and were flying them back to Chile today, officials said.

The group’s twin-engined Cessna Titan 404 lost height and plummeted into the ice Tuesday as the pilot prepared to land at a Chilean air force base on the South Shetland Islands at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Chilean air force helicopters located the wreck of the 10-seater plane and confirmed that there were no survivors. Officials said poor weather conditions were apparently responsible for the crash.

The eight Americans were headed for a New Year’s Eve barbecue in the Antarctic. The owner of the Chilean charter firm Aeropetrel, who was flying the plane, and his mechanic were also killed.

The Americans were identified as Ben Callis, 34, of Key West, Fla., a travel agent and organizer of the excursion; Irving Lambrecht, a retired businessman from Los Angeles; Wayne Riddle, an engineer from Buchanan, Mich.; Tim Lang, a petroleum engineer from Carmichael, Calif.; James Jasper, a librarian from Oxnard, Calif., and university professors Walter Michael of Columbus, Ohio, James Howell, Yellowsprings, Ohio, and Paul Cox, Brooklyn, N.Y.

The accident occurred Tuesday at 5 p.m. as the plane approached the Teniente Marsh Air Force Base after a four-hour flight across the icy waters of Drakes Passage from Punta Arenas.

“The plane climbed suddenly before landing, apparently to give the tourists a panoramic view, and then lost height, crashing into a glacier,” a company spokesman said.

“Weather conditions are very unpredictable on the Antarctic and must have been the cause of the accident,” he said. The spokesman said the charter firm’s owner, Ivan Martinez, 34, was an experienced pilot.