A small military plane transporting members of an indigenous community to their Amazonian home territory crashed in the jungle Tuesday, killing seven people on board, Venezuela’s defence ministry said.
Three military personnel, including the pilot, survived the crash, which was blamed on a technical failure in the Amazonas state in southern Venezuela.
There were at least 10 people on board, including several members of the Yanomami indigenous community, the crew, and medical personnel, officials said.
The co-pilot was among those who perished.
The plane belongs to an air force unit dedicated to assisting indigenous communities in the far-flung Amazonian region.
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The tragedy occurred days after a passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur last Thursday, with no immediate signs of survivors, according to authorities.
The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at around 1:00 pm local time (0400 GMT).
The plane crash in Venezuela also joins a list of plane crashes that have been recorded in less than two months in different parts of the world.
On July 21, at least 27 people, mostly children, were killed after a Bangladeshi fighter jet crashed into a school in the capital Dhaka, a government official said.
Most of the victims were schoolchildren who had just been let out of class when the Chinese-made F-7 BJI aircraft slammed into the Milestone School and College.
The crash, which is the country’s deadliest aviation accident in decades, also left more than 170 people injured.
On July 1, the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plane, which was full of fuel as it took off for a long-haul flight to London, exploded into a burst of orange flame just after taking off, killing over 200 people.
AFP
