Nando Times

By ALEJANDRO RUIZ, Associated Press

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (July 9, 2000 9:42 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com)

All 19 people aboard were killed when a twin-engine passenger plane crashed on a domestic flight from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, authorities said Sunday.

AeroCaribe flight 7831, carrying 17 passengers and two crew members, crashed Saturday evening after it left the Chiapas state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez on a short flight to Villahermosa, capital of the neighboring Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

"The plane ... was found Sunday morning in a gully which is very difficult to reach. It has been confirmed that there are no survivors," AeroCaribe said in a statement.

The dead included four children, 13 adults, and two pilots.

All but two of those aboard were believed to be Mexican citizens, said Jose Ferroso, manager of AeroCaribe's main offices.

The Jetstream-32 turbo prop, made by British Aerospace, is similar to the J-31 commuter plane that crashed in Pennsylvania in May after both engines failed. Nineteen people were also killed in that crash.

There was no immediate report on the cause of Saturday's crash, but the pilot reported bad weather conditions ten minutes before he lost contact with the control tower.

"The last message from the pilot was that he was deviating slightly from the route because of bad weather," said Gerardo Bracamontes, AeroCaribe's regional manager in Tuxtla Gutierrez.

The AeroCaribe flight crashed in a remote, roadless northern section of Chiapas about 35 miles south of Villahermosa. Rescue crews were dispatched to the area, but will take several hours to reach the mountainous site, said the regional director of the Tuxtla Gutierrez airport.

According to passenger lists, two of the children - Anthony and Christopher McDade - listed their father as an American who was apparently not aboard the flight. However, the children's nationalities were not immediately available.

AeroCaribe, an affiliate of Mexicana - one of Mexico's two major carriers - covers routes in southern Mexico.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), July 10, 2000