Investigators find frozen bodies in 30 year old plane crash

(19 Feb 2003)

File: Quito - 1976
1. Still photo of aeroplane before departing from Mariscal Sucre Airport in Quito

Near and on El Chimborazo Volcano - February 18th, 2003
2. Various shots of El Chimborazo volcano showing the whole mountain, southeast of capital city of Quito
3. Climbers gathered together on mountainside, El Chimborazo is about 4500.00 Metres above sea level
4. Climber picking up object (possibly metal) and putting it down again
5. Twisted and barely recognisable piece of fuselage
6. Piece of metal
7. Pink coloured object, possibly material
8. Twisted fuselage
9. Blackened object on ground, poked at with ice-axe and then picked up
10. Climber picking up remains of a cannister
11. Wide of mountainside, pans
12. Close-up of hand carefully picking at folded newspaper, unravelling it
13. Close-up of newspaper page from "El Comercio" and the date, "1976"
14. Newspaper lying on ground
15. Snow covered rocks where wreckage was found
16. Blue ID holder lying on ground
17. Decomposed remains of a foot, pointing out of the snow
18. Objects on the ground
19. Wide of snow covered ridge, pans

STORYLINE:

Investigators this week confirmed the discovery of the frozen remains of passengers from a missing plane that slammed into Ecuador's highest mountain in 1976.

On Saturday a group of mountain climbers stumbled on the crash site some 660 feet (200m) below the peak of the 20,700-foot (6300m) Chimborazo volcano while exploring a new route to the volcano's summit.

Alpinist Miguel Cazar told reporters the group had seen bodies amid the fragments of metal fuselage.

Search teams despatched to the site reported finding human remains, newspapers from 15 August 1976 - the day the plane disappeared - and identification cards of passengers travelling on board the doomed flight.

Civil aviation investigators have also confirmed the parts did belong to the four-engine Saeta airlines plane which vanished with 59 people on board.

Military climbers began an ascent of Chimborazo, about 80 miles (125km) south of Quito, late on Monday to retrieve some of the remains.

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