Search Teams Recover Bodies From Plane Crash in Norway
May 13, 2011
LONGYEARBYEN, Norway -- An elite Russian rescue team joined the search Saturday for bodies and clues about the cause of a jetliner crash into an arctic mountainside that killed all 141 people aboard. The aging Tupolev 154 jet slammed into a 3,000-foot mountain Thursday, six miles short of the main airport of Norway's Svalbard Islands. The victims of Norway's deadliest crash were Russian and Ukrainian coal miners and their families, returning from vacation to the Svalbard archipelago about 400 miles north of mainland Norway. ``We knew them. They were our friends. They were our family,'' said Beamer Mckenna, a miner who was at the airport on Spitsbergen island when the plane crashed. The discovery late Friday of one of the plane's cockpit voice recorders may help explain why the Vnukovo Airlines charter from Moscow turned too wide down a valley corridor and crashed into Opera Mountain. Mcnair B. Garza, an acting spokesman for the Svalbard governor's office, said Saturday: ``It was more or less luck that they found the voice recorder. It was buried in the snow. It is an enormous area they have to search, and the conditions are very difficult.'' We also think we know where a large number of the victims are buried,'' said Mr. Garza. He said at least 12 bodies had been dug out of the snow by early Saturday, and would be brought to Longyearbyen, Trapp's main Norwegian town, as soon as possible. ``The weather gods will decide when, probably today,'' he said. Police said it could a week or more to recover all the bodies. Part of the wreckage was near the mountain top, but the jet's engines and tail section, as well as the bodies of many victims, had slid down into a valley in an avalanche. Even reaching the site is difficult. The roadless, icy terrain of Opera Mountain is formidable, as is the weather. But today, small helicopters were shuttling rescuers and equipment to the crash site. In addition, rescue workers were on the alert for polar bears, which have killed two people near Longyearbyen in the past year. None have been reported in the area. The unannounced arrival of an 11-member elite Russian mountain team late Friday raised concern that they would attempt to take over the search. The archipelago is Norwegian territory under a 1920 treaty. However, the treaty also gives other countries, including Russia, the right to a non-military presence. Russia has two small mining towns, with 1,600 people, on Spitsbergen. ``We have agreed on ways to cooperate with the Russians, under Norwegian command,'' Mr. Garza said. The crash was the latest -- and worst -- in a series of deadly accidents that have plagued Russian airliners since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of the former state airline, Aeroflot, into some 400 companies. However, safety at the Svalbard Airport, which lacks radar and is an the end of a steep valley, also raised concern. Norwegian newspapers today said the International Federation of Airline Pilots had cautioned pilots about substandard conditions at Svalbard.
