4 Americans Among 11 Killed in Fiji Plane Crash

A Fiji airliner with 14 people aboard crashed in “poor visibility” Saturday on a sugar cane plantation 200 yards short of an airport runway, killing 11 people, including four Americans, officials said.

Airport officials said the crash of the government-owned airliner was the worst air disaster in the history of the island nation in the South Pacific.

An airport spokeswoman said the Fiji-owned Sunflower Airlines plane crashed Saturday afternoon on approach to Nadi International Airport in Fiji’s second-largest city after a 30-minute flight from the capital of Suva, on Viti Levu Island about 150 miles to the north.

In Suva, a U.S. Embassy official said two crew members and 12 passengers were aboard the plane.

“Four Americans are deceased and two injured,” consular officer Micaela Cella said today. “We’ve got names, but they haven’t been firmly identified.”

Government officials refused to identify the victims pending notification of relatives.

Airport spokeswoman Lita Latu said the 18-seat Heron aircraft missed the runway in “poor visibility.” It crashed about 200 yards from the airfield on a sugar-cane plantation.

“The aircraft is scattered, the pieces of the plane were scattered all about,” she said. “Police are guarding the place where the accident happened.”

Cella said the fringe of a typhoon was lashing the island with wind and rain by early today.

Police dismissed reports of an explosion on board as the plane crashed. The aircraft was believed to have broken up on impact, hurling passengers from the wreckage, police said.

An aircraft investigator from New Zealand was expected to arrive Monday in Nadi.

Sunflower Airlines runs short flights among the islands in the South Pacific archipelago about 1,100 miles north of New Zealand.

Fiji is comprised of 840 islands with a total land area the size of New Jersey, but only 106 are inhabited.