This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Share the spirit with a gift from Starbucks. Our coffee brewers & espresso machines at special holiday prices. http://www.starbucks.com/shop/subcategory.asp?category_name=Sale/Clearance&ci=274&cookie_test=1 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Wreckage of Ecuadorean Jet Is Found January 29, 2002 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 12:50 p.m. ET IPIALES, Colombia (AP) -- Search teams found the wreckage of an Ecuadorean airliner that crashed with 92 people on board near a volcano straddling the Colombia-Ecuador border, an Ecuadorean official said. It will take rescue workers at least two hours to reach the remote site of the crash near Chiles Volcano near the Ecuadorean border, Minister of Government Marcelo Merlo told reporters in Ecuador's capital, Quito. Merlo did not say whether there were any survivors. There was no immediate confirmation of the find from Colombian officials. The TAME airlines Boeing 727-100 from Quito vanished Monday morning over the Andes as it flew through foggy weather. It had passed over the Colombian town of Ipiales, circling toward its destination -- the tiny airport in nearby Ecuadorean border city of Tulcan -- when it lost radio contact at 10:23 a.m. It was carrying 83 passengers, including seven children, and nine crew members, TAME said. The nationalities of the passengers were still not known. It was also not clear whether the wreckage was found on the Ecuadorean or the Colombian side of the Chiles Volcano, whose 15,668-foot summit lies on the border between the two nations. The dormant Chiles Volcano, whose summit often has a dusting of snow, straddles the Ecuador-Colombia border and is usually under heavy cloud cover. The volcano is said to be populated by Andean condors and wolves and have a number of lakes. Rescue teams from both nations were focusing on the region of the Chiles and another nearby volcano, Nevado de Cumbal. Witnesses reported hearing a plane flying through the clouds on Monday and then an explosion in the area. ``We felt as though it was flying low, but we couldn't see it because the sky was full of clouds,'' said Javier Escruceria, a farmer who lives four hours by horseback from Cumbal village, in the shadow of the 15,721-foot Nevado de Cumbal. ``It seemed like it had gone down behind the mountain.'' After stopping in Tulcan, the flight was to have continued to Cali, Colombia's third-largest city. At the city's airport, distressed relatives awaited news of their loved ones. ``Everyone tells us something different ... but no one knows anything,'' Adriana Cano said. She said her sister and brother-in-law were passengers. Three rescue planes and a helicopter combed the area near Ipiales until nightfall Monday but could find no traces of a crash. Clouds persisted Tuesday and delayed the resumption of the search. At midmorning, a search flight took off from Ecuador, entering Colombia as the crew peered through breaking clouds. In Cumbal, firefighters drove up a misty road into the mountains to try to locate the crash. A spokeswoman for the Colombian air force, Maj. Angela Rodriguez, said Colombian authorities ruled out a possible guerrilla attack. Rebels have been active in the border area, but there have been no known cases of the guerrillas trying to down an airliner in Colombia's 38-year war. This was the second crash in the border region this month. A plane from Ecuador's state-owned oil company carrying 26 people crashed on a jungle-covered hillside in Colombian territory Jan. 17 while heading from Quito to Lago Agrio, 10 miles northeast of Quito. In April 1998, an Air France Boeing 727 leased by TAME crashed in Bogota, Colombia, killing all 53 people aboard. The plane had been warned by air traffic controllers that it was off course. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Ecuador-Plane.html?ex=1013339817&ei=1&en=14878f354850c6de HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company