137 Killed in Crash of Domestic Colombia Jet

A domestic jetliner with 137 passengers and crew crashed during a storm in the northern Colombia mountains Thursday, killing all aboard, a civil defense director said.

The Boeing 727 had left Cucuta, about 250 miles northeast of Bogota, and crashed on a mountain 50 miles away near Zulia, officials said.

“Rescue workers who found the wreckage of the plane . . . confirmed that there are no survivors,” said Col. Miguel Benedetti, civil defense director for the state of North Santander, said in an interview by radio-telephone from Zulia.

Crash Caused Landslide

“The impact of the plane against the mountain was so violent that it caused a landslide that buried part of the aircraft,” Benedetti said.

Zulia police said three witnesses reported that the plane clipped some trees, then slammed into a mountain and burst into flames.

Passengers aboard the flight of the Avianca state airline included a Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop and members of two Colombian soccer teams. It was not immediately clear if there were foreigners aboard the aircraft.

“We heard a tremendous noise . . . and ran toward the mountain where we saw the ruins of the plane,” said Victor Pineda Villamizar, a teacher, in an interview with the RCN radio network.

Pineda Villamizar said local rescue workers could not reach the crash site, which he said was at about 8,000 feet.

Benedetti said the search for bodies will begin this morning.

According to the government’s Civil Aeronautics Agency, the plane left Cucuta near the Venezuelan border at 1:16 p.m. for Barranquilla, a Caribbean port 250 miles northwest, and then was to continue to the port city of Cartagena.

Avianca reported that the plane carried 131 passengers and six crew members.

The agency said the control tower at Cucuta lost radio contact with the plane four minutes after takeoff as the aircraft traveled in stormy weather. The agency said the plane’s captain, Francisco Ardila, did not report mechanical problems.

‘Flying at Low Altitude’

“It was on the route, but it was flying at a very low altitude,” said a control tower spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The agency said the passenger list included a Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop, Msgr. Horacio Olave Velandia, 44, of Tibu, and at least 31 soccer players from two teams affiliated with the state petroleum company Ecopetrol. The teams were flying to a tournament in Cartagena.

Colombia’s last major air crash occurred July 27, 1985, when an air force transport plane went down in the Amazon jungle, killing 74 people. It was carrying passengers because of an airline strike.