Crash near San Andres

[Kip Powick]

The crash happened on a small island that many tourists visit. We "almost" took one of the flights from SAI to go there and do a bit of diving last trip. Met a couple of the pilots that fly for the airline a couple of weeks ago...hope they were not involved...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A twin-engine commercial plane crashed Saturday while taking off from the tiny Colombian island of Old Providence, killing eight people, including a 3-year-old boy, and injuring six other passengers, authorities said.

The West Caribbean Airways turboprop plane, a Czech-built Let-410, was carrying mostly tourists from the Caribbean island of Old Providence to another nearby Colombian island, San Andres, off the coast of Nicaragua, said Martin Gonzalez, spokesman for Aerocivil, the civil aviation agency.

"It had just taken off when some type of technical problem apparently happened, and it crashed at the edge of the runway," Gonzalez said.

The dead included the pilot, co-pilot, five women and the boy, said Glensi Tulande, spokeswoman for the archipelago's police department. She said it appeared all of those killed were Colombian nationals.

Colombian air force planes arrived at the island shortly after the accident to fly the seriously injured to hospitals in the city of Cartagena on the Colombian mainland, said Aerocivil's acting director, Col. Carlos Montealegre.

West Caribbean Airways, a Colombian airline, began service in 1998 and flies domestic routes with a fleet of 14 airplanes.

Old Providence is about the size of Manhattan but has only 2,500 residents, mostly descendants of slaves who speak English as their first language. It has largely avoided the violence associated with Colombia, a country embroiled in a long-running guerrilla conflict.

Nicaragua, which is 110 miles west of the island, has gone to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, to claim ownership of the archipelago that includes Old Providence and San Andres.