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Plane crashes onto Philippine slum, killing 13
A four-seater cargo plane crashed onto a crowded Philippine slum on Saturday, sparking a fire that killed 13 people including three children and left at least another 20 injured, officials said.
The crash killed both the pilot and co-pilot, while the other fatalities are thought to be residents of the shanty town, said police chief inspector Enrique Sy.
Charred bodies lay amid the twisted wreckage of burned slum homes as firefighters cleared away blackened sheets of corrugated iron.
“The plane struck one house but the others also went up in flames. These are informal settlers, packed into rows of houses,” Sy told reporters.
The number of recovered remains rose to 13 as dusk fell over the crash site, Philippine National Red Cross secretary-general Gwendolyn Pang said.
The blaze engulfed a nearby elementary school, but Pang said it was empty at the time because it was a weekend.
Rogen Rodriguez, a police officer detailed at Manila airport, rushed home to help rescue neighbours from the fire, unaware that his sister, Maricel Garado, was among the dead.
“She had just stepped out of her house to look for her child outside. Part of the wreckage from the exploding plane struck her (the mother) and she was killed,” Rodriguez said.
“People first noticed the plane circling overhead. Then there was an explosion, it veered to one side and crashed,” Rodriguez’s bus driver brother-in-law Manuel Boton said.
Boton is married to a sister of the dead woman.
“Some people were able to run away but the others were unlucky and could not get out,” Boton said.
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 the 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.
Florencio Bernabe, the mayor of Paranaque where the crash occurred, said that at least 50 shanties burned down and at least 20 other injured victims had been taken to hospital.
A four-seater cargo plane crashed onto a crowded Philippine slum on Saturday, sparking a fire that killed 13 people including three children and left at least another 20 injured, officials said.
The crash killed both the pilot and co-pilot, while the other fatalities are thought to be residents of the shanty town, said police chief inspector Enrique Sy.
Charred bodies lay amid the twisted wreckage of burned slum homes as firefighters cleared away blackened sheets of corrugated iron.
“The plane struck one house but the others also went up in flames. These are informal settlers, packed into rows of houses,” Sy told reporters.
The number of recovered remains rose to 13 as dusk fell over the crash site, Philippine National Red Cross secretary-general Gwendolyn Pang said.
The blaze engulfed a nearby elementary school, but Pang said it was empty at the time because it was a weekend.
Rogen Rodriguez, a police officer detailed at Manila airport, rushed home to help rescue neighbours from the fire, unaware that his sister, Maricel Garado, was among the dead.
“She had just stepped out of her house to look for her child outside. Part of the wreckage from the exploding plane struck her (the mother) and she was killed,” Rodriguez said.
“People first noticed the plane circling overhead. Then there was an explosion, it veered to one side and crashed,” Rodriguez’s bus driver brother-in-law Manuel Boton said.
Boton is married to a sister of the dead woman.
“Some people were able to run away but the others were unlucky and could not get out,” Boton said.
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 the 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.
Florencio Bernabe, the mayor of Paranaque where the crash occurred, said that at least 50 shanties burned down and at least 20 other injured victims had been taken to hospital.
