News Update Bodies of three missing crewmembers in Pampanga plane crash found

Three bodies of missing crew members of a Russian-made cargo plane that crashed in Pampanga Wednesday night were finally recovered Thursday, police authorities said.

Bodies of Russian ground engineers Mikolay Bannon and Vadim Yakimov and Bulgarian crew member Tzvitoslav Guetchevski were found but were already "beyond recognition," local police in Mexico City, Pampanga said.

The charred bodies had already been brought to a funeral home in town, the police report added.

The Antonov 12 aircraft, owned by Inter Island Caro, was bound for Clark Field in Pampanga from Mactan Island in Cebu when the crash occurred around 9:10 p.m.

Initial investigation showed that the cargo plane (with tail number UP-AN216) encountered a short circuit at about 8:50 p.m., triggering a fire inside the aircraft. Clark's tower lost communication with the plane after that.

Russian pilot Yuriv Tochonyy was forced to make an emergency landing in Barangay Laput in Mexico City, but it crashed about 22 miles (35 kilometers) south of Clark airport, the former US Air Base near Manila.

Besides the pilot, his co-pilot Dmitriy Struminskiy, a 39-year-old Uzbek, and Bokhadir Ruziev, 44, also an Uzbek, survived the incident with injuries.

Aircraft investigators from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines have already retrieved the plane's black box and voice recorder.

However, investigators could not immediately examine the voice recordings in the black box because they were in Russian.

No residents were hurt in the incident as the cargo plane crashed in an open field away from residential areas. - Mark Merueñas/LBG, RJAB J
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News Update Cargo plane crashes in the Philippines; 3 dead

By JIM GOMEZ,
MANILA, Philippines – A Russian-made cargo plane crashed and burst into flames in a rice field north of the Philippine capital Wednesday as it attempted a landing. Three crew were killed and three pulled out alive from the burning wreckage.

The Antonov 12 aircraft was flying from Mactan in the central Philippines and crashed about 22 miles (35 kilometers) south of Clark airport, the former U.S. Air Base near Manila, said Alfonso Cusi, director-general of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

Firefighters struggled into the night to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft after it exploded on impact, ripping the plane into two sections, said police Chief Inspector Carlito Fabro.

Villagers managed to rescue three crew members _ two Russians and an Uzbek, who suffered bruises and were brought to a police station to rest, police said.

Three other crew were found dead near the cockpit, Cusi said, adding investigators were trying to identify the badly burned bodies.

The Antonov 12 plane was leased by a Manila-based airline company for domestic use, Cusi said. Clark's tower lost communication with the aircraft at about 8:50 p.m. (1250 GMT).

"Their communication signal suddenly got garbled then the plane disappeared in the radar," CusiN