Miami Herald
More than 100 people are feared dead after a Boeing 737-200 on a flight from Havana to Holguin crashed in a rural area Friday afternoon shortly after takeoff from Jose Marti International Airport.
State media reported that there were 105 passengers — 100 of them Cuban — and nine foreign crew members aboard the plane that was leased by Cubana de Aviacion, the Cuban national airline, from a Mexican company. At least four survivors were transported to a nearby hospital, according to Granma, the Communist Party newspaper.
One of the survivors, a man, later died at Calixto Garcia hospital in Havana from burns and other trauma. The remaining three female survivors at the hospital were still in serious condition.
Miguel Diaz-Canel, who became Cuba’s president on April 19, headed to the scene after receiving word of the crash.
“The news is not very hopeful. It seems there will be a high number of victims,” he said. In a Granma image, he is seen in shirt sleeves striding through a field near the charred body of the plane.
Diaz-Canel later appeared on Cuban state television offering his condolences on behalf of the Cuban government and Communist Party to family members. He said the events surrounding the crash would be investigated by a commission and “all information will be given.”
The passenger roster included four children and an infant.
Aviation sources said the plane was traveling from Havana to Holguin, 416 miles east of the capital, when it went down about 1 { miles from the airport located in the Rancho Boyeros suburb of Havana. An NBC reporter in Havana said the plane fell on a government farm and that homes in the area weren’t affected.
Two busloads of the survivors’ families were taken to the crash scene, and Cuban authorities were working to get family members from Holguin to Havana to help identify victims. A flight was scheduled to leave Holguin at 10 p.m. with a representative from each family aboard. Some of the victims also lived in Las Tunas and Granma provinces.
Firefighters on the scene battled the blaze as billows of black smoke shot skyward, but when Diaz-Canel appeared on state television in late afternoon, he said the fire had been extinguished. The airport was closed shortly after the crash, leaving several flights from Havana to Miami on hold, but it reopened Friday afternoon.
The flight took off shortly after noon before crashing at 12:08 p.m., according to Granma. Witnesses said the plane turned around to head back to the airport and struck electric cables before plummeting.
Rescuers arrived within 12 minutes of the crash, according to a Granma reporter.
Shortly after the crash, ambulances, fire trucks, and cars from Cuba’s Instituto de Medicina Legal could be seen speeding down Havana’s central Avenue of Independence, reported 14y medio, an independent digital outlet in Cuba.
Roberto Pena Samper, president of Corporacion de la Aviacion Cubana, said the aircraft was the property of a Mexican company called Global Air and had been leased by Cubana de Aviacion.
Although the plane was leased, Cubana de Aviacion’s aging fleet has faced safety issues in the past.
Just Thursday, the Cuban National Aviation Authority grounded Cubana de Aviacion’s Antonov AN-158 fleet due to technical issues. According to Airline Geeks, the airline operated up to six of the Ukrainian aircraft, which had repeated maintenance issues. As of April, only one of the planes was still in operation.
The Associated Press reported that Cuban First Vice President Salvador Valdes Mesa met Thursday with officials from the airline to discuss improvement in Cubana’s service in the face of strong criticism.
In April 2017, a Cuban military plane crashed in Artemisa province and eight people died. The plane was an AN-26.
