Cubans recover black box from airliner

Havana, Agency
Cuban authorities have recovered the black box and cockpit voice recorder from an airliner that crashed in the central province of Sancti Spiritus, killing all 68 people on board, the island's official AIN news agency said Friday.

Provincial chief prosecutor Rolando Diaz told reporters authorities hope the contents of the recorders will shed light on the cause of the crash.

AeroCaribbean Flight 883 - en route to Havana from the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba - went down Thursday afternoon shortly after the crew reported an emergency and contact was lost.

The plane, a twin-engine ATR-72, is used for regional and short-duration flights and has a maximum seating capacity of 74 people.

Cuban television and the government Web site Cubadebate released a list from the Civil Aeronautics Institute with the names of the 40 Cubans - seven crew members and 33 passengers - and 28 foreigners from 10 different countries who were aboard the plane.

The travelers from other countries included nine Argentines, seven Mexicans, three Dutch citizens, two Germans, two Austrians, a Spaniard, a French citizen, an Italian, a Japanese and a Venezuelan.

Cubadebate said Thursday's crash was the first aviation accident in Cuba since March 2002, when a small plane went down in the central province of Villa Clara and killed all 16 people on board.

Cuba's deadliest plane crash of the past three decades occurred in September 1989, when an Il-62 traveling to Milan went down in Havana shortly after takeoff and killed all 115 on board and 40 people on the ground.