TEMPO.CO, Havana - More than 100 people were killed when a Boeing 737 crashed soon after taking off from Havana in what appeared to be Cuba`s worst air disaster in nearly 30 years, and there were only three survivors, officials and state media said on Friday, May 18.
The passenger plane, on a domestic flight to Holguin in eastern Cuba, crashed at 12:08 p.m. (16:08 GMT). There were 105 passengers, including five children, plus crew members, state media reported.
Five of the passengers and the crew were foreign, according to media reports. Two Argentine citizens and an unspecified number of Mexicans were among the dead, the Argentine and Mexican governments said.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in broadcast comments that a high number of people appeared to have been killed. He said the fire from the crash had been extinguished and authorities were identifying bodies.
Diaz-Canel said authorities were investigating the cause of the crash.
Cuba declared an official period of mourning from 6 a.m. on May 19 to 12 p.m. on May 20, during which the flag would be flown at half-mast outside state and military institutions.
Former Cuban president Raul Castro, who now heads the country's ruling Communist Party, offered his condolences to the families of those who died in the crash as he recovered from a hernia operation, State media reported.
The last fatal crash in Cuba was in 2017, the Aviation Safety Network said. It was a military flight and all eight on board were killed. In 2010, a commercial Aero Caribbean plane crashed in central Cuba and all 68 people on board were killed.
In the worst Cubana disaster, a Soviet-made Ilyushin-62M passenger plane crashed near Havana in 1989 killing all 126 people on board.
REUTERS
