Authorities search for victims of Peruvian air crash

August 25, 2005

Rescuers are searching for the victims of the Tans Peru airliner crash which occurred earlier this month. Emergency services rescued 5 survivors on Thursday morning.

TANS say that 41 people were killed and a further 57 injured in this, the fifth airliner crash worldwide this month. The Boeing 737-200 airliner crash-landed in heavy jungle near the city of Pucallpa, 840 kilometers (522 miles) northeast of Lima, the capital city. Peruvian authorities have ordered an investigation and have shipped the aircraft's two flight data recorders, or "black boxes" to the United States for data retrieval.

Jorge Belevan said "We've also found five more survivors and that takes the number (of survivors) to 57. Two people are still missing and there are 41 dead," Local authorities also said that the death toll is likely to rise due to inaccessible location of the crash site. This is the second TANS Peru plane crash in three years, following the January 2003 crash of flight 222 in the Peruvian rainforest. In that plane crash there were no survivors.

Peruvian government lawyer Marco Ochoa said that rescuers are opening the skin of the aircraft to determine whether there are more bodies trapped inside.

Survivors said that the plane was caught in a fierce storm about 10 minutes before the crash. The plane then caught fire and landed in swampland.