Death toll in Ecuadorian military plane crash rises to eight

Mar 21, 2009, 13:44 GMT

Quito - Rescue teams found another body in the rubble Friday after a military plane crashed into an apartment building in Ecuadorian capital Quito, taking the death toll to eight.

The eighth victim was a handicapped woman who lived alone.

The aircraft crashed into a building amid thick fog Thursday and exploded. All five people on board the eight-seat propeller Beechcraft plane and two people on the ground were found dead shortly after the crash.

   Four people were injured, one of them seriously, officials said. The flight recorder was also recovered.

The plane was flying low as it prepared to land in Quito and grazed a tree before it flew into the building, witnesses said. It went down about 2.5 kilometres from the airport.

   It was on a training flight from Manta on Ecuador's central coast and was carrying three military personnel and the wife and 12-year-old son of the pilot, Defence Minister Javier Ponce said.

   The seven-storey building's top three floors partially collapsed when the plane crashed into it.

   Authorities were sweeping the area for more victims Friday, and experts were evaluating whether the building had suffered structural damage.

   The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but an investigation was launched.

   The Guapulo neighbourhood, where the crash took place, has now seen four crashes in the past 27 years, causing 30 deaths. A 1988 crash killed the air force commander and a 1992 accident killed tourism minister Pedro Zambrano.

   President Rafael Correa and Ponce visited the crash site Thursday night.