Jet Crashes in Remote Area of Chile; at Least 19 Killed
A chartered Chilean airliner carrying 72 people, mostly American tourists en route to Antarctica, crashed into a freezing channel Wednesday near the southern tip of Chile, killing at least 19 passengers, authorities said.
Seventeen of the survivors from the crash of the British-made BAE-146 airplane were injured in the accident, a spokesman for the Chilean airline LAN said.
The plane crashed in the Beagle Channel as the pilot attempted to land during a light rain at Puerto Williams, on Navarino Island, 1,500 miles south of Santiago, the LAN spokesman said.
“The airplane went beyond the end of the landing strip and fell into the water,” a statement issued by LAN said.
Radio reports said the plane overran the runway, bounced several times and came to rest about 450 feet into the channel, which separates Chile from Argentina.
Airline officials said the cause of the accident was not immediately known. LAN said 19 people died in the crash; the Chilean navy put the death toll at 20.
The names of the passengers--all foreigners and mostly Americans, according to tour officials--were not immediately released.
LAN President Jose Luis Moure said all seven crew members--two pilots, four flight attendants and a mechanic--survived the crash.
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