Colombian cargo plane crash kills five crew

BOGOTA: A Colombian cargo plane crashed three minutes after taking off in the east of the country Tuesday evening, killing five crew members and critically injuring another, officials said.



The sole survivor, a flight technician, was in hospital and would be flown to the capital Bogota for treatment, the Colombian civil aviation authority said. The dead include the pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and dispatcher, it added.

The Boeing 727, operated by the Colombian carrier Aerosucre, was bound for Bogota from Puerto Carreno, near the Venezuelan border.

It crashed at 5:23 pm local time (2323 GMT) 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the German Olano Airport, the authority said in a statement.



Cellphone videos posted online show the aircraft nearly hitting a group of plane watchers as it struggled to gain altitude, then careening to one side and exploding as it hit the ground.

The cause of the crash was unknown, a civil aviation spokesman told AFP, adding that a team of investigators was en route to the scene.