A Cubana Airlines Boeing 737 has crashed on takeoff from Havana's José Martà International Airport, according to state-run television.Â
Cuban media said at least 110 people were on board the plane when it crashed. There was no immediate word on casualties.
State television and websites said the plane was headed to the eastern city of Holguin and crashed between the airport in southern Havana and the nearby town of Santiago de Las Vegas.
The plane lay in a farm field and appeared heavily damaged and burnt, with firefighters spraying water on its smoldering remains. Government officials including President Miguel Diaz-Canel rushed to the site, along with a large number of emergency medical workers and ambulances. Residents of the rural area said they had seen some survivors being taken away in ambulances.
The plane was rented by Cubana, which has taken many of its aging planes out of service in recent months due to mechanical problems.Â
Here's a list of other major plane crashes in Cuba in recent years:
- April 29, 2017: A Cuban military plane crashes into a hillside in the western province of Artemisa, killing eight troops on board, the government said. The Soviet-made AN-26 took off from the Playa Baracoa airport outside Havana and crashed outside the town of Candelaria about 40 miles (65 kilometres) away.
- Nov. 4, 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. It was the country's deadliest air disaster in more than two decades. Cuban aviation authorities later blamed bad weather and pilot error for the crash.
- Sept. 4, 1989: A chartered Cubana 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.
- Oct. 6, 1976: Cubana flight from Barbados to Jamaica is blown up by bomb, killing 73. The attack is blamed on exiles with ties to U.S.-backed anti-Castro groups. Both of the men accused of masterminding the crime took shelter in Florida, where one, Luis Posada Carriles, lives to this day.
(The Associated Press, CBS News contributed to this report.)
DEVELOPING: A plane has crashed in Havana, Cuba, CBS News confirms https://t.co/eLTumRHSKR pic.twitter.com/Jw4dnhcCk5
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 18, 2018
