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UN plane crash in Haiti kills 11

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-10 08:45

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Eleven UN peacekeepers died on Friday when their surveillance plane crashed into a mountainside in Haiti during a routine patrol, UN officials said.

A UN rescue team confirmed there were no survivors among the 11 crew and military personnel on the plane, a Casa-212, when it went down near the town of Fonds-Verrettes, near the border with the Dominican Republic.

The dead were Uruguayans and Jordanians, UN spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci said.

The cause of the crash was unknown.

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"The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti announces with sadness that a MINUSTAH plane, carrying 11 passengers, including the crew, crashed southeast of the commune of Ganthier," the United Nations said in a statement.

"The Casa 212 aircraft was making a reconnaissance flight at the time of the accident before hitting a mountainside."

The UN peacekeeping force has been in Haiti since 2004. It consists of some 9,000 troops and police.

Local officials said the plane went down in a remote area near the village of Pays-Pourri in the district of Ganthier, a farming region area east of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

"It's in a very inaccessible area, about six hours on foot from Ganthier," Ralph Lapointe, the mayor of Ganthier, told Reuters by telephone.

"It happened shortly before noon. I saw several UN helicopters flying toward the area," he said. "It seems that they have already recovered the bodies."