SANTIAGO, Dec 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A Chilean military plane with 38 people
aboard has gone missing after taking off from the country’s south for a base
in Antarctica and is presumed to have crashed, authorities have said.
Seventeen of those on board the C-130 aircraft were crew and the others
were passengers, Chile’s Air Force said Monday.
The plane is considered to have crashed and “all national and
international air and maritime means available in the area are continuing the
search (for survivors) in the sector where communications were lost with the
aircraft,” it added in a statement Tuesday.
The four-engine aircraft took off Monday at 4.55 pm (19:55 GMT) from an
air base in Punta Arenas in Chile’s far south and contact was lost at 6:13 pm
— a little over an hour after it took off.
Those on boards were to carry out logistical support tasks at Chile’s
Eduardo Frei Antarctic base — the country’s largest, the Air Force said.
Personnel were also being transferred to inspect the base’s floating fuel
supply pipeline and undertake anticorrosive treatment of the facility.
The plane did have a satellite positioning system, but it did not appear
to be working during the early morning search, said Eduardo Mosqueira,
Commander of the Fourth Air Brigade.
President Sebastian Pinera, whose country has been witnessing its worst
civil unrest in decades, said in a tweet he would fly to the southern city of
Punta Arenas with Interior Minister Gonzalo Blumel.
Once there, they would meet up with Defense Minister Alberto Espina to
monitor the search and rescue mission, which was underway using aircraft and
navy vessels.
The plane’s disappearance is the latest incident in a country where
Chileans have for nearly two months protested social and economic inequality,
as well as entrenched political elite.
The crisis and its violent demonstrations have led to 26 deaths and more
than 12,000 injuries, according to the Organization of American States.