Investigators yesterday confirmed the recent discovery of the frozen remains of passengers from a missing plane that slammed into Ecuador's highest mountain nearly three decades ago.
"The parts we have found have been verified and they belong to the plane," civil aviation investigator Ivan Arellano told reporters, referring to a four-engine Saeta airlines Vickers Viscount plane that vanished on August 15, 1976, with 59 people on board.
Search teams also found human remains, newspapers from the day the plane disappeared and identification cards of known passengers, he said.
A group of mountain climbers told reporters on Monday they had found the crash site.
Army General Luis Aguas said military climbers began an ascent late on Monday of the 6,310-metre Chimborazo volcano, about 125km south of Quito.
Civilian alpinist Miguel Cazar told television Channel 4 yesterday he had seen bodies amid the fragments of metal fuselage.
"There are also human remains under the glaciers and in crevices that are going to be impossible to retrieve ... they should declare the site a sanctuary," he said.
The mountain climbers stumbled across the wreckage, some 200m below Chimborazo's peak, while exploring a new route to the volcano's summit on Saturday.
AP
