One of the survivors of the tragedy of Río de la Plata river -in which 5 people were killed when a plane crashed early in the afternoon close to Carmelo- said to the doctor who treated him at the hospital in Colonia that the pilot commented to the rest of the passengers that it was foggy and that he had to search for a place to land.
The doctor confirmed to the Argentinean channel TN Noticias that Sebastián Vivona is “probably” travelling today to Buenos Aires, where he is to be operated on as he suffered two fractures on his upper limbs, although none of them was an open fracture.
The doctor mentioned that the patient had a “good forecast” and that he was “conscious the whole time”. She added, “We could talk to him the whole time”.
The doctor attending Vivona said that he did not remember the plane having any flaw.
“The only thing he mentioned is that the pilot said that it was foggy and the he was searching for a place to land,” she stated.
The doctor commented that she interrogated Vivona-who was seated behind the pilot- several times about the accident. On the other hand, the two survivors rescued who were taken to the hospital in San Fernando, Argentina, Ignacio Llosa and Santiago Villamil, stated that before the plane crashed they heard a “loud” bang.
The plane had departed from San Fernando, Argentina, to Carmelo, and as it could not land in such city, it decided to return to Argentina, when it had the accident. As well as Vivona, Llosa and Villamil, the aircraft piloted by Leandro Larriera also carried Gustavo Fosco, Paula Buery, FacundoAlecha, Fernando Lonigro and Fernando Carlos Sánchez, all of them Argentinean.
Fosco, Alecha, Lonigro, Sánchez and the pilot Larriera were killed, while Buery was the fourth survivor. Three of the five bodies of the victims were rescued yesterday, and a team of rescuers will return today to the spot of the accident to remove the other two bodies, informed NicolásScarlatto, head of NationalNaval Sub-prefecture in Carmeloto El Observador. This task will demand the use of “special tools” by the National Army, he stated.
Apart from Vivona. Buery –the only woman in the aircraft, who suffered a hip fracture-was also taken to Colonia and is in the Evangélico hospital. Both were rescued by a team of the Uruguayan Air Forces.
The Rescue
Air traffic controllers from Carrasco airport had received an alert call at 1.30 pm from their colleagues in Colonia, who reported to have lost contact with the aircraft that belongs to the Argentinean businessman Federico Bonomi, owner of Kosiuko and the hotel Casa Chic in Carmelo. Bonomi was not on that aircraft, which had departed from San Fernando at 12.20 pm and was supposed to arrive at Carmelo at 12.45 pm.
Immediately after, a helicopter model Douphin 365 departed from Air Base no.1 in Carrasco to the place at 1.50 pm with a team which included two pilots, two rescuers, a doctor and a mechanic. Another plane departed 20 minutes later to support the crew of the helicopter.
The journey to the spot of the accident, 10 kilometres away from the coast of Carmelo, took 40 minutes approximately. The Argentinean Prefecture was already working there with a helicopter which departed from Ezeiza airport.
Once in the place of the accident, the Uruguayan rescuers got to the aircraft but had “difficulties to reach the bodies that were inside the plane, because the seats were detached; the inside of the plane was very deformed,” said Álvaro Loureiro, spokesperson of the Uruguayan Air Force, to El Observador.
The Argentinean TV channel C5N spread images of the moment in which the body of one of the victims was being removed from the aircraft. The efficiency of the operation enabled to transfer the injured passengers to San Fernando and to Colonia. The rest of the passengers and the pilot were already dead when the rescuers arrived. (Production: Carolina Delisa, Martín Quijano, Melissa Lewis, Juan Marra and Natalia Roba)
