More on the TAME Plane Crash

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An Ecuadorean TAME Boeing 727-100 carrying 94 people crashed today in
fog-bound Andes mountains close to the border with Colombia, an airline
spokesman said.The plane lost radio contact at 10:23 a.m., the Civil Aviation
department said in a statement. It was carrying 85 passengers, including
seven children, and nine crew members, the statement said. Civil Aviation
initially said 92 people were on board.The flight, which originated in Quito,
crashed in Colombian territory near Ipiales, a city just across the border
from the plane's destination, the Ecuadorean city of Tulcan, said TAME
spokeswoman, Toa Quirola.Diego Vallejo, a spokesman for the Ecuadorean Red
Cross, said rescue workers knew where the plane crashed but that they hadn't
been able to reach the site. "The plane is located in Colombian territory,"
he said. Vallejo said his organization had contacted the Colombian Red Cross
about cooperating in rescue efforts.Colombia offered to help locate the
aircraft, Colombian Civil Aviation director Juan Carlos Velez said, but he
added that he could not confirm that the plane went down in Colombian
territory.The plane's planned flight path took it into Colombian airspace and
over Ipiales as it headed to Tulcan, 110 miles northeast of Quito, the TAME
spokesman said. The mayor's office of Ipiales, located six miles northeast of
Tulcan, said the city's airport was closed because of fog.It was the second
crash this month in the border region. A plane from Ecuador's state-owned oil
company with 26 people on board crashed in Colombian territory on January 17
while heading from Quito to Lago Agrio, an oil outpost in the Amazon jungle
110 miles northeast of the capital.Six days later, searchers found the
wreckage of the twin-engine propeller plane on a jungle-covered hillside a
few miles across the border. All 21 passengers and five crew members on board
died.Tulcan is about 30 miles northwest of where the oil company plane
crashed.





Leo/ORD

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