Cuban plane crashes, kills 8 troops on board, military says

Cuban plane crashes, kills 8 troops on board, military says

CARAMBOLA, Cuba -- A Cuban military plane crashed into a hillside
Saturday in the western province of Artemisa, killing eight troops on
board, the government said.

Cuba's military said in a statement that the Soviet-made AN-26 took off
from the Playa Baracoa airport outside Havana at 6:38 a.m. and crashed
outside the town of Candelaria about 40 miles away.

Fidel Castro, Cuba's fiery communist leader, dead at 90
The weather was clear and sunny. The military said a special commission
would investigate the cause of the crash. Officials did not immediately
release any further information.

"At about 7 a.m. I was sitting in front of the cafe and I saw an
airplane, which I watched because it looked slow, almost touching the
palm trees," said Regla Maria Gallardo in Carambola, a community in
Artemisa surrounded by mountains. "After a bit I heard what had happened."

Carambola residents watched as ambulances arrived and police and
soldiers blocked the road leading to the accident site.

In November 2010, an AeroCaribbean flight from Santiago to Havana went
down in bad weather as it flew over central Cuba, killing all 68 people
aboard, including 28 foreigners, in the country's deadliest air disaster
in more than two decades. In 1989, a chartered Cubana de Aviacion plane
flying from Havana to Milan, Italy, went down shortly after takeoff,
killing all 126 people on board, as well as at least two dozen on the
ground.

Source: Cuban plane crashes, kills 8 troops on board, military says -
CBS News -
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cuban-military-plane-crashes-kills-8-on-board-military-says/