Andes volcano search for jetliner that vanished
Rescuers are preparing to search two volcanic mountains for an airliner with 92 people on board that vanished over the high Andes.
The Boeing 727-100 from Ecuador's TAME airline took off yesterday from Quito, for Tulcan, 110 miles away on the Colombian border.
TAME said the 83 passengers included seven children.
The plane's flight plan took it over the Colombian town of Ipiales, just across the border from Tulcan.
The airline initially said the plane had gone down near fog bound Ipiales, but later said it was not sure what had happened.
"Everyone tells us something different, but no one knows anything," Adriana Cano said at the airport in Cali, Colombia - the flight's final destination. She said her sister and brother-in-law were passengers.
TAME's airport chief Jorge Godrillo said three rescue planes and a helicopter had combed the area near Ipiales, but could find no traces of a crash.
Ecuadorean Air Force Colonel Jorge Valencia said searchers would today focus on the Cumbal mountain region in Colombia. Farmers there heard an explosion around the time the plane is believed to have disappeared.
Cumbal is near the plane's approach path to Tulcan and lies near two Andean volcanoes.
"Because of this, we calculate that the plane, if it has crashed, could be on the volcanoes," said Juan Carlos Velez, director of Colombia's Civil Aviation authority.
