ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PUERTO PLATA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
SOURCE: Associated Press
Working among sharks and floating debris, rescuers in inflatable rafts pulled more than 100 bodies from the Atlantic on Wednesday after a chartered jet loaded with German tourists crashed with 189 people aboard.
There were no signs of survivors, and the cause of the crash was unknown. The Boeing 757 was carrying the tourists home from the Caribbean on Tuesday night when it crashed about 12 miles northeast of this oceanside resort.
An air and sea search by the U.S. Coast Guard and Dominican military on Wednesday turned up only empty life rafts and debris.
``There's a lot of debris. ... You can see at least 50 bodies floating. It doesn't look like anybody would have survived that,'' said Coast Guard helicopter pilot Scott Matthews.
At least 105 bodies were recovered, the Coast Guard said. The search was suspended at nightfall in a heavy rain and was to resume today.
Boeing spokesman Dick Kenny said the plane - the second Boeing 757 ever to crash - was built in 1985. An American Airlines Boeing 757 crashed Dec. 20 as it approached Cali, Colombia, killing 160 people.
Flight 301, operated by a Dominican airline, Alas de Transporte Internacional, took off from the Puerto Plata International Airport about 11:45 p.m. (10:45 p.m. EST) Tuesday in a light rain. It reached an altitude of 7,000 feet and appeared on radar screens to veer right, as if turning back, before going down, Dominican officials said.
Gen. Hector Roman, director of the Dominican Republic's civil aviation agency, said the pilot radioed that he was returning to Puerto Plata, and the last message from the crew were the words, ``Stand by.''
Roman's account, however, was disputed by an air traffic controller on duty in the tower Wednesday and by Maj. Alan Arias Batlle, part of a committee assigned by the country's Civil Aeronautics Office to investigate the crash.
``He just called in to air traffic controllers his position, and then the aircraft disappeared from the screen,'' said the controller, who refused to give his name.
``All the communication was normal,'' Arias Batlle said. ``In no moment did they speak of an emergency.''
Bound for Frankfurt and Berlin, the plane was owned by a Turkish company, Birgenair, and leased to the Dominican airline.
The plane carried 176 passengers, including four children, and 13 crew members. Most of the passengers were German tourists, while 11 crew members were Turkish and two were Dominican.
The bodies found Wednesday were taken to a makeshift morgue at Puerto Plata, protected by heavily armed Dominican guards.
Sharks in the crash area prevented divers from entering the water, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Timothy Lavier in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In addition, the water's depth - about 4,300 feet - makes ``normal scuba diving
The U.S. Navy has offered a dive team to try to retrieve the aircraft's flight data and cockpit voice recorders, he said.
Dominican Air Force Col. Manuel Mendez Segura said Dominican investigators speculated that the plane struck the water nose down.
``It's a relatively new aircraft, and I believe it did not have prior mechanical problems,'' Mendez Segura said.
Officials from Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board were arriving later Wednesday to help the Dominican Republic in its investigation.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: 2 Maps by AP. color. KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB