A plane that was transporting tourists to observe the ancient Nasca Lines, one of the archaeological attractions of Peru, fell this Friday, killing its seven occupants, including two Chileans and three Dutch.
The accident occurred after noon, when the Cessna 207 aircraft of the Aero Santos company, “in which 2 crew members and 5 passengers were travelling, crashed to the ground in the vicinity of the María Reiche airport in the city of Nasca, moments after takeoff. “, the transport ministry said in a statement, specifying that “there have been no survivors”.
The Civil Defense delegation in Nasca, 400 km south of Lima, reported that the dead are the two Peruvian crew members of the aircraft (the pilot and the co-pilot), two Chilean citizens and three Dutch.
The deceased Chileans are a man and a woman, a Chilean diplomatic source confirmed to ‘AFP’. The Nasca Lines, one of the main tourist attractions in Peru, are geoglyphs over 2,000 years old with geometric and animal figures that can only be appreciated from heights. Located in the middle of the desert, their real meaning is an enigma: some researchers consider them an astronomical observatory and others a calendar.
‘Big explosion’
“The plane crashed in the Majoro area when the tour over the Nasca Lines began,” the RPP station said on its website. The aircraft fell on the side of a road.
“After the impact of the plane with the ground, there was a large explosion, causing the bodies of the victims to be calcined,” said the local media ‘Canal N’, which published a video with the smoking remains of the aircraft covered by foam. thrown by firefighters to put out the fire.
Nasca has a small airfield where dozens of small planes operate, with a large movement of passengers, mainly foreign tourists. The Aero Santos company is one of them and offers flights of between 30 minutes and one hour on these lines drawn in the desert and known worldwide.
The Aviation Accident Investigation Commission (CIAA) will be the entity in charge of investigating the causes of the accident, the Ministry of Transportation indicated.
The Cessna 207 is a single-engine, eight-seater, popular with air taxi companies. Accidents similar to this Friday have occurred in the past. In October 2010, four British tourists and two Peruvian crew members died when an AirNasca company plane fell after flying over the lines.
AFP
#dead #plane #falls #tourists #Nasca #Lines #Peru