More than100 killed in plane crash in Cuba

Cuban Crash

HAVANA – More than 100 people   were killed after a Boeing 737 airliner crashed and exploded near Jose Marti International Airport in Havana on  Friday.

The plane was carrying 104 passengers and nine foreign crew, according to local media

Transport Minister Adel Yzquierdo said the crash killed 110 people.

Yzquierdo told reporters that among the dead were 99 Cubans, six Mexican crew members, two passengers from Western Sahara, a Mexico tourist and an Argentine couple.

Three women pulled alive from the mangled wreckage are the only survivors and are said to be in critical condition in hospital.

State TV said the plane was on an internal flight from the Cuban capital to the city of Holguin, in the east of the island.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel said an investigation was under way into the  crash of the nearly 40-year-old  plane leased to the national carrier Cubana de Aviacion by a Mexican company.

The crash was the worst in Cuba since a Soviet-built Ilyushin-62M passenger plane crashed near Havana in 1989 killing all 126 people on board and another 14 on the ground.