Plane crashes in the Philippines, search under way for 4 on board

Rescuers struggled on Sunday to reach the slopes of an active volcano in the central Philippines where a small plane is believed to have crashed, officials said, with the fate of those on board still unconfirmed.

The plane with four people on board has crashed in central Philippines where rescuers were searching for survivors on Sunday, an aviation official said.

The Cessna 340 aircraft went missing early on Saturday morning soon after departing for Manila from Bicol International Airport, south of the capital, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) said in a statement.

The plane was carrying two passengers, a pilot and a crew member, the aviation regulator added.

Manila-based Energy Development Corporation said the missing plane belonged to the company and it was seeking to confirm if the wreckage spotted on Sunday in “very steep terrain and high altitude of about 6,000 feet” was theirs.

Two of the four passengers on board the missing plane were Australian, Bicol police said, adding rescue teams with sniffer dogs had been deployed to find the crash site.
A local search and rescue team has identified a possible crash site near the airport, CAAP spokesperson Eric Apolonio said.

“The problem is the weather is bad and it hampers the visibility of the ground search,” he added.

Albay disaster officer Cedric Daep said a Cessna aircraft had been seen 300 to 350 metres (984-1,148 feet) from the crater. But he warned the rumbling volcano could erupt at any time, which was complicating rescue efforts.

“There might be a sudden ash explosion and we could be added to the casualties,” Daep told local radio DZBB.

An aerial search will continue Monday to locate the missing people on board.

“We are not discounting the possibility that they could still be alive,” Daep said.

Apolonio said the possible crash site had only been seen from the air.

The aviation accident comes less than a month after another Cessna plane went missing on January 24 in the northern province of Isabela. A search for that plane’s wreckage is still ongoing, Apolonio said.

In a separate incident, two Philippine air force aviators were also killed in a training exercise last month when their SF260 Marchetti plane plummeted onto a rice paddy in Bataan province, near Manila.