58 survive Peru plane crash

PUCALLPA, Peru — Trudging through knee-deep mud in a hailstorm, at least 58 people escaped a flaming Peruvian airliner that splintered as it crash-landed in the Amazon jungle, killing 37. One aviation expert called it a "miracle" so many walked away.

TANS airline said wind shear Tuesday may have forced the pilot's emergency-landing attempt in a marsh near the Pucallpa airport, making TANS Peru Flight 204 the world's fifth major airline accident this month and August the deadliest month for airline disasters in three years.

The Boeing 737-200 was carrying 98 people, including six crew members, on a domestic flight from the Peruvian capital of Lima to Pucallpa, company spokesman Jorge Belevan said yesterday.

Belevan said three missing people might include survivors from Pucallpa who returned home after the crash without receiving medical assistance. The plane's pilot was among the dead.

"A plane is totally destroyed and more than 50 percent of the passengers have survived," John Elliot, a Peruvian pilot and aviation expert, said in an interview, calling it "a miracle."

Jose Leandro Vivas, 43, a Peruvian American from Brooklyn, N.Y., survived along with his three daughters, his brother and his sister-in-law.

"We jumped out [of] the plane and unfortunately we were thigh deep in the marsh water. It was just mud," Vivas said yesterday. "We had to practically crawl out of there and try to get to some high ground."

His brother, Gabriel Vivas, said he and another man saw a baby boy behind the plane when they got out. "He picked up the baby and we tried to get to higher ground. He got stuck in the mud and then I grabbed the baby. Then he jumped in front of me to push away the thorns that were in our way. Between us, we got the baby to higher ground with everybody else," he said.

Gabriel Vivas said he not did know if the baby's parents had survived but was told the baby was taken to Lima and was alive.

The pilot began his approach to the airport in torrential rains and strong winds. Four miles from the airstrip, he attempted to make an emergency landing, TANS said. Belevan credited the expertise of the pilot and co-pilot and insisted the plane did not crash. "The plane made an emergency landing and the accident occurred during the emergency landing," he said.

But Elliot and Victor Girao, a former president of Peru's Association of Pilots, said the crash appeared to be due to pilot error. Elliot said the pilot should have opted to avoid the storm and land at another airport.

Both said the pilot was flying too close to the ground while making the approach to the airport from four miles out, making it difficult to control the aircraft against wind shear.

Search teams have recovered the plane's cockpit flight-data recorder, said Pablo Arevalo, a prosecutor in Pucallpa.

Belevan said there were 18 foreigners aboard the aircraft: 11 Americans, four Italians, one Colombian, one Australian and one from Spain.

Among the dead were at least four foreigners, an American man and woman, a Spanish woman and a Colombian woman, said Manuel Rodriguez Rojas, an identification expert.

Rodriguez identified the Americans as Stephen Michael Lotti, 28, through his boarding pass, and Sherra Young Gay through a visa card found on her body. No hometowns were available for either.

Many bodies could not immediately be identified.