By AFP,
Tegucigalpa : Four people were killed and 65 injured when a jet owned by Central America’s TACA airlines overshot the runway and slid onto a road at Tegucigalpa’s airport, the Honduran presidency said.
The plane, carrying 140 people including crew, “landed today at 10:00 in the morning, then slid off the runway at at Toncontin International Airport, with a toll of four dead and 65 injured,” an official statement said.
The plane was an Airbus A-320 flying a Los Angeles-San Salvador-Tegucigalpa route, officials said.
It skidded off the runway, crashed down a 20-meter (66-foot) embankment, plowed across a road and broke into three pieces, TACA officials said.
TACA manager Armando Funes told local media that “the plane was completely destroyed” and that “the passengers were being taken to hospitals for evaluation.”
Among the dead was Nicaraguan Harry Brautigam, the president of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, and Janet Shantal Neele, the wife of the Brazilian ambassador to Honduras, Brian Michael Fraser Neele, who was hospitalized.
Also killed were the plane’s pilot and a person in a car struck by the plane, the presidential statement said. A total of six cars were hit by the airplane.
Many of the injured suffered smoke inhalation from a fire that ignited during the crash, rescue personnel said.
Honduras Industry and Commerce Minister Norman Garcia said poor visibility could have contributed to the crash.
The first hurricane of the season, Alma, swept through Central America yesterday, leaving the region humid and rainy.
“It was a difficult landing due to the clouds at Toncontin (airport).
The cloud ceiling was very low and the pilot attempted to land on the first try but had to take flight again,” said Garcia.
“On the second try, I saw the plane’s tires touch the runway right in front of the terminal, and that was a sign he had overshot the runway,” he said.
Also among the wounded were Costa Ricans, Mexicans, Guatemalans and Hondurans, according to information provided by diplomatic missions to local media.
The airport at Tegucigalpa is ringed by mountains and considered one of the most dangerous in Central America, according to aviation experts.
This was the eighth registered accident since 1959 for TACA, which underwent a major expansion in 1997 when it acquired several smaller regional carriers.