Seven die in crash of army plane into apartments in Ecuador

March 20, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A small army plane slammed into an apartment building in an upscale neighborhood of Ecuador’s mountainous capital Thursday, killing five people aboard the aircraft and two more on the ground.

The plane grazed a house before plowing into the four-story building, sending black smoke into the evening sky and filling a residential yard with the aircraft’s wreckage.

Witness Eric Samson said a thick mist shrouded the neighborhood at the time, though the cause of the crash was unknown.

“It was horrible. I heard the plane flying very low, then I heard the explosion,” neighbor Camille Avfert told The Associated Press. “We ran out onto the street and saw fire.”

Quito fire Chief Atahualpa Sanchez said emergency crews recovered the victims’ badly burned bodies, while rescuers evacuated an unspecified number of injured people in stable condition.

AP journalists at the scene saw rescuers carry away a girl whose head was bloodied.

The army said three soldiers on the plane died: the pilot, a major; the co-pilot, a lieutenant; and the mechanic. In a statement, it said the pilot’s wife and son were also killed.

The Red Cross reported that two more people on the ground died, including a woman identified as Elena Reascos, the mother of a 9-year-old boy.