plane crashed in philippines

Manila. A small plane crashed in the Philippines. The place where this plane crashed in the central Philippines, there was also an active volcano. There were four people aboard this plane. Relief work is going on in the sloping area near the volcano and the survivors are being searched. The Cessna 340 plane carrying four people went missing on Saturday shortly after take-off from Bicol International Airport in Albay province for Manila, several kilometers from the Mayon volcano.

The Manila-based Energy Development Corporation said the missing plane belonged to its company and was trying to confirm whether the wreckage seen on Sunday at an “altitude of about 6,000 feet” belonged to it. Bicol police said two of the four passengers aboard the missing plane were Australian citizens. Rescue teams along with sniffer dogs have been deployed to locate the accident site.

Eric Apolonio, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, said: “The problem is that the weather is bad and that makes it difficult to carry out rescue operations.”

Volcano disaster official Cedric Depp said the Cessna plane was seen 300 to 350 meters (984 feet to 1,148 feet) from the crater. Depp warned that the volcano could erupt at any time, making rescue difficult.

“There could be an eruption of ash at any moment and we could be among the dead,” Depp told local radio DJBB.

The aerial search will continue on Monday to trace the missing people. Depp said, “We are not ruling out the possibility that he may still be alive.”

Last month, on January 24, another Sasena aircraft went missing in the northern province of Isabela. Apollonio said that the wreckage of that plane has not been found yet.

In a separate incident, two aviators of the Philippine Air Force were killed in a training exercise last month. His SF260 Marchetti plane crashed in a rice paddy in Bataan province near Manila.