At least 13 people died and several others injured when a light cargo plane crashed into a shantytown in Parañaque City on Saturday, officials said.
Queen Air plane ploughed through a warren of shanties about four minutes after its pilot requested an emergency landing shortly after takeoff at 2:14 p.m., said Parañaque Mayor Florencio Bernabe.
Thirteen people, including three children and the plane’s pilot and co-pilot, were killed as the plane exploded in flames and set a row of shanties on fire, he said.
“The plane struck one house but the others also went up in flames. These are informal settlers, packed into rows of houses,” Chief Inspector Enrique Sy of the Parañaque City police told reporters.
Bernabe, in an interview with Radyo Inquirer 990AM, identified the Occidental Mindoro-bound plane’s crewmen as Captains Timothy Albo and Jessie Kim Lustica
He said at least 50 shanties, home to an estimated 600 people in Barangay Don Bosco in Parañaque, were razed.
Sy said the five bodies that were first pulled out from the ashes were charred beyond recognition.
Rescuers also recovered the bodies of a child and an infant, said Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the Philippine National Red Cross.
Some 20 people were rushed to the Parañaque Doctor’s Hospital, the Paranaque Medical Center, and the South Super Highway Hospital for treatment of burns.
Resident Maribel Savedoria tearfully recounted on local radio how her husband perished in the blaze after pushing her and their four children out through the window of their rented room.
“He pushed all of us out to save us, but he did not make it. There was an explosion and all my children sustained burns,” she told DZBB radio.
Houses as far as 50 meters away from the crash site caught fire and quickly spread, the flames licking at the nearby F. Serrano Elementary School.
The fire sparked by the crash was declared out at around 4 p.m. after reaching the Task Force Alpha alarm, entailing response from all firefighting units in Parañaque and neighboring cities.
Sy described the aircraft as a twin-engine, six-seat cargo plane with tail number RPC 824, owned by the ITI Company. It was bound for San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, to pick up a cargo of seafood.
Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines chief Ramon Gutierrez said the twin-engine, six-seat cargo plane RPC 824, owned by the ITI Company , declared an emergency four minutes after taking off from the Manila domestic airport.
“Unfortunately, the plane did not make it,” he said, adding that the cause of the crash was not immediately known.
The plane crashed before being able to return to the airport, he said, adding the plane would have been carrying a full tank of fuel when it crashed.
With reports from Jeannette I. Andrade and Tina Santos, Inquirer; Erwin Aquilon, Radyo Inquirer 990AM; Associated Press; Agence France-Presse
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