Clues Sought to Plane Crash That Killed 80 in Ecuador
QUITO, Ecuador — Investigators sifted through the charred remains of a Cuban airliner that plowed into a soccer field, searching Sunday for what caused the disaster that killed 80 people, including five children playing on the ground.
Officials said they found one of the plane’s “black box” flight recorders after 15 Cubans from the Cuban Institute for Aeronautics arrived to help in the investigation.
The largest intact portion of the plane, the tail, was removed from the crash site. The rest of the wreckage, surrounded by charred magazines and burned life vests, was being collected for study.
The head of the Ecuadorean commission investigating the accident, Col. Jorge Moreno, said the plane’s departure had been delayed more than 30 minutes because of technical problems.
Moreno did not specify what the problems were. He said investigators had found the left-hand engine set for reverse thrust at the time of the crash and the right-hand engine partially set for reverse.
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