Black box found in deadly Mexico City plane crash
November 8, 2008 - 0:0
MEXICO CITY (AFP) -- Investigators found the black box from a plane crash in Mexico City that killed 13 including the interior minister and another top player in the country's drug crime crackdown.
""We now have the black box, they are analyzing it. It will take time,"" said Transport Minister Luis Tellez, who has rejected speculation of foul play in the rush hour crash in the center of the sprawling Mexico capital late Tuesday.Condolences for the victims' families poured in, including from abroad from those who had worked with Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino, the second most powerful official after the president.
The interior ministry Learjet crashed on a pedestrian street in Mexico City after taking off from the central state of San Luis Potosi where Mourino had earlier signed a security accord.
Mexican, British and U.S. experts -- from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board -- began investigations into the crash.
""There have been no signs that permit another hypothesis than an accident, but investigations will explore all possibilities,"" said Tellez earlier.
""There was no explosion in the air,"" he said, after witnesses reported hearing explosions at the crash site near the city's main Reforma avenue.
The crew did not report any problems, Tellez added, rejecting media reports to the contrary.
Some 200 police and soldiers watched over the roped off, charred crash site Wednesday as the toll rose to 13, after four more deaths were confirmed.
""We have 13 bodies. We are investigating to see if another woman has also died,"" prosecutor Miguel Angel Mancera said on Televisa news.
Two of the victims were female, Mancera said, adding that four were presumed to be ""people passing by the (crash) site.""
Some 40 people were injured, including four seriously, officials said.
The deaths of 37-year-old Mourino, who became interior minister in January, and security advisor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos were a massive blow to the government's anti-drug strategy.
Mourino had led a government campaign against mounting drug-related violence -- in which some 4,000 have died so far this year -- including the deployment of some 36,000 troops across the country.
President Felipe Calderon late Tuesday paid homage to ""one of my closest collaborators and one of my best and closest friends,"" in a brief statement to journalists.
Calderon held an emergency meeting overnight, calling for a ""rigorous investigation"" into the crash, and naming Mourino's deputy, Abraham Gonzalez Uyeda, to replace him in the interim, his office said in a statement Wednesday.
""We were shocked and saddened to learn"" of Mourino's death, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.
Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said his country was ""very touched"" by Mourino's death and that Mexico could count on Spain's support in its ""laudable battle against organized crime.""
Mourino was born in Spain in 1971 to a Spanish father, who is president of the Celta de Vigo soccer club.
He was accused him of favoring family businesses in contracts with state oil company Pemex when he was advisor to the Energy Ministry in 2003.