TEGUCIGALPA - A passenger plane skidded off a runway at Tegucigalpa airport in Honduras on Friday on landing, veered onto a road and smashed into cars and a building, killing at least three people.
The TACA airlines Airbus, which had 142 people on board, lay broken in three parts and spewing fuel. Two people were still trapped in cars underneath the wreckage, an aviation official said.
The plane, arriving from San Salvador, circled the airport several times before attempting to land in heavy fog, survivor Mario Castillo told Honduran television."Suddenly we felt a big noise and we were all trying desperately to get out," he said. "The worst injured were the people in business class."
Local emergency services chief Carlos Cordero said three people were killed, two who were on board the plane and one who was driving a vehicle hit by the aircraft. Several others, including the pilot, were seriously injured, he told Reuters.
Some 20,000 gallons of fuel had leaked out of the wreckage, posing a serious fire hazard, Cordero said.
The plane zig-zagged off the runway and smacked into some cars, the local TACA manager, Armando Funez, told Honduran television.
One of the dead was Harry Brautigam, a Nicaraguan who headed the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said.
Tegucigalpa, nestled in hills, is one of the most treacherous airports for landing in Latin America due to its short runway and difficult approach.
"I am thanking God I am alive - there are other passengers who are in a very bad way," survivor Roberto Sosa told Honduran radio.
The last time El Salvador's TACA was involved in an accident was in 1993 in Guatemala City when a Boeing 767 airliner overran the runway as it was landing and crashed into some houses. Nobody was killed.
The TACA airlines Airbus, which had 142 people on board, lay broken in three parts and spewing fuel. Two people were still trapped in cars underneath the wreckage, an aviation official said.
The plane, arriving from San Salvador, circled the airport several times before attempting to land in heavy fog, survivor Mario Castillo told Honduran television."Suddenly we felt a big noise and we were all trying desperately to get out," he said. "The worst injured were the people in business class."
Local emergency services chief Carlos Cordero said three people were killed, two who were on board the plane and one who was driving a vehicle hit by the aircraft. Several others, including the pilot, were seriously injured, he told Reuters.
Some 20,000 gallons of fuel had leaked out of the wreckage, posing a serious fire hazard, Cordero said.
The plane zig-zagged off the runway and smacked into some cars, the local TACA manager, Armando Funez, told Honduran television.
One of the dead was Harry Brautigam, a Nicaraguan who headed the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said.
Tegucigalpa, nestled in hills, is one of the most treacherous airports for landing in Latin America due to its short runway and difficult approach.
"I am thanking God I am alive - there are other passengers who are in a very bad way," survivor Roberto Sosa told Honduran radio.
The last time El Salvador's TACA was involved in an accident was in 1993 in Guatemala City when a Boeing 767 airliner overran the runway as it was landing and crashed into some houses. Nobody was killed.
