At Least 41 Killed in Peru Air Crash

A Peruvian airliner carrying 100 people crashed Tuesday while attempting an emergency landing near a jungle town, killing at least 41 people, officials said.

The Boeing 737 went down near the Pucallpa municipal airport after the pilot radioed that he could not land because of strong winds and a downpour, Norma Pasquel, a receptionist at the airport, said by phone.

The pilot tried to land in a marsh, but the impact split the aircraft in two, a regional official said.

Jorge Belevan, a spokesman for TANS Peru airline, said the plane was carrying 92 passengers and eight crew members. He said two of 11 Americans aboard were unaccounted for and the others were hospitalized.

Police Lt. David Mori said three foreigners were confirmed dead: an American woman, an Italian man and a Colombian woman.

At least 56 people from TANS Peru Flight 204 were being treated at hospitals, and it was not clear whether anyone had escaped injury.

“I felt a strong impact and a light and fire and felt I was in the middle of flames around the cabin, until I saw to my left a hole to escape through,” crash survivor Yuri Gonzalez told Radioprogramas.

“The fire was fierce despite the storm,” he said. “Hail was falling, and the mud came up to my knees.”

The plane circled the airport, about 300 miles northeast of the capital, before attempting the emergency landing.

Many of the injured reportedly had burns and broken bones.

“The plane was about to land in Pucallpa ... but it was caught in a crosswind,” Belevan said.

He added that the aircraft was built in 1983 and TANS recently rented it from a South African company.

One witness, Tomas Ruiz, told RPP radio that the plane was destroyed.

“The plane made an emergency landing but without its landing gear,” firefighter Ilda Pineda said.

“The weather was really terrible; there was a fierce storm at the time,” a police officer in Pucallpa said.

TANS, founded in the 1960s by the Peruvian air force to help serve remote jungle communities, began commercial service in 1998. It has about 30% of the local market, focusing on underserved routes.

In January 2003, a TANS twin-engine Fokker 28 turbojet jet plowed into a 11,550-foot high mountain in Peru’s northern jungle, killing all 42 passengers and four crew members aboard.

Rain, low clouds and the rugged, steep terrain kept search teams from locating the wreckage for two days.