PERU: LOOTERS AT CRASH SITE AS AUTHORITIES TRY TO CLEAN UP SITE OF TANS BOEING 737-200 DISASTER. / SURVIVORS INTERVIEWED.
Record ID:
383725
PERU: LOOTERS AT CRASH SITE AS AUTHORITIES TRY TO CLEAN UP SITE OF TANS BOEING 737-200 DISASTER. / SURVIVORS INTERVIEWED.
- Title: PERU: LOOTERS AT CRASH SITE AS AUTHORITIES TRY TO CLEAN UP SITE OF TANS BOEING 737-200 DISASTER. / SURVIVORS INTERVIEWED.
- Date: 25th August 2005
- Summary: (LATIN) PUCALLPA, PERU (AUGUST 25, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. VARIOUS: MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN LOOTING CRASH SITE. (4 SHOTS) 0.15 2. WS: SOLDIERS AT CRASH SITE. 0.19 3. CU: SOLDIERS LOOKING THROUGH CRASH SITE. (2 SHOTS) 0.27 4. WS/EXTERIOR: OF PUCALLPA AIRPORT 0.31 (BN1) PUCALLPA, PERU (AUGUST 25, 2005) (REUTERS) 5. TRACK: HEARSE ARRIVING AT AIRPORT. 0.36 6. VARIOUS: OF COFFINS BEING REMOVED FROM HEARSE AND BEING PREPARED TO BE PUT ON A PLANE THAT WILL TAKE THEM TO LIMA; WIDE PLANE THAT WILL TAKE COFFINS TO LIMA; WIDE COFFINS BEING LOADED ONTO PLANE; WIDE PLANE. (10 SHOTS) 1.40 (LATIN) LIMA, PERU (AUGUST 25, 2005) (REUTERS) 7. WS/PAN/EXTERIOR: OF HOSPITAL. 1.44 8. PAN: PERUVIAN FIREFIGHTER WILLIAN GERALD ZEA PALACIOS IN BED AND HIS WIFE MONICA JOY GLENN IN THE OTHER BED. 1.50 9. CU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) PLANE CRASH SURVIVOR, MONICA JOY GLENN, SAYING: "The turbulence became stronger and stronger and I think the last part of the turbulence was when the plane was actually hitting the trees. And the last thing that I remembered from the inside of the plane was just this fire coming from the front end of the plane. And I just remember thinking 'I can't believe this." 2.15 10. CU: CUTAWAY OF GLENN'S BANDAGED HAND. 2.17 11. CU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) GLENN SAYING: "I didn't realize why he pushed me, but then I realized it was because there were flames and he wanted to get me out of the flames. And I really have to say that my husband is the one that saved my face and my hands." 2.33 12. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN FIREFIGHTER WILLIAN GERALD ZEA PALACIOS SAYING "I think being a firefighter helped me a lot because I had the presence of mind. I couldn't help much because of my burned hands, but I could do some things. I was in the emergency of the plane that crashed in Arequipa in 96." 2.58 13. CU: GLENN WITH A NEWSPAPER WITH HEADLINE: "MY FIREFIGHTER SAVED ME" 3.02 14. CU: HEADLINE. 3.06 (LATIN) LIMA, PERU (RECENT) (AMATEUR VIDEO) 15. VARIOUS: WEDDING BETWEEN GLENN AND PALACIOS. 3.20 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 9th September 2005 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PUCALLPA AND LIMA, PERU
- Country: Peru
- Reuters ID: LVAD8AT706QAZNYVWUF7PJFJSW4Q
- Story Text: Looters swarm the crash site as authorities attempt to clean up and the
injured tell harrowing tales of survival.
Hundreds of people swarmed knee-deep in mud over the chaotic wreck of a Peruvian plane on Thursday (August 25, 2005), some hunting for the black box,
some for three missing victims and others just trying to grab thousands of
bank notes strewn about or other curios, witnesses said.
Police said torrential rain had halted the official search for three
people, among them an Australian woman, still unaccounted for after a TANS
Boeing 737-200 crashed in a freak hailstorm in Peru's northern jungle on
Tuesday (August 23), killing 40.
The plane was reduced to chunks of charred rubble, yet more than half
the 98 passengers and crew miraculously survived. Officials said it was too
early to say why it crashed, but suggested poor weather or pilot error may
have been to blame.
More than 100 police, air force and army officers were trying to keep
order as heavy rain and lightning worsened the chaos in the steamy jungle
town.
Meanwhile, officials prepared to send several of the bodies to Lima.
Some 20 coffins, draped in white cloth, were lined up near the runway of the
Pucallpa airport ready to be flown to Lima when heavy rains on Thursday
subsided.
Two Americans, a Spanish woman and a Colombian woman were among the
dead. The pilot also died.
Lucky survivors including a 9-year-old girl who rescued her baby
cousin, and a man who saw his skin shrivel and drop off as a fireball swept
through the plane, told stories of heroism and horror.
Survivors said the flight was routine until the plane hit turbulence
about 10 minutes before landing and fell sharply.
"The turbulence became stronger and stronger and I think the last
part of the turbulence was when the plane was actually hitting the trees. And
the last thing that I remembered from the inside of the plane was just this
fire coming from the front end of the plane. And I just remember thinking 'I
can't believe this," Monica Joy Glenn, an American who was on her
honeymoon with her Peruvian husband, told Reuters.
Her husband, Peruvian Willian Gerald Zea Palacios is a firefighter who
helped his new wife escape the crash with just a second-degree burn on her
hand.
"I didn't realize why he pushed me, but then I realized it was
because there were flames and he wanted to get me out of the flames. And I
really have to say that my husband is the one that saved my face and my
hands."
Palacios said his job as a firefighter helped.
"I think being a firefighter helped me a lot because I had the
presence of mind. I couldn't help much because of my burned hands, but I
could do some things," he said.
The couple met two years ago in the choir of the Santa Maria Catholic
University and married in Peru a week ago.
Peru's Trade and Tourism Minister Alfredo Ferrero blamed bad weather
but said the Andean country, which attracts millions of tourists every year,
must upgrade its airlines and attract private investment in the sector.
Many of Peru's airports are little more than airstrips and only the
international airport in Lima has radars. Pucallpa airport, built in the
1960s, has no lights or radars and planes cannot land there after dark.
TANS, founded in the 1960s by the air force to help serve remote jungle
communities, became a commercial airline in 1998 but is heavily in debt. The
crashed plane was built in 1983.
Peru has said it has had preliminary contacts about selling a stake in
the airline to Air China.
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