A small plane carrying foreign tourists to view Peru’s famed Nazca Lines archaeological site crashed on Saturday, killing all 13 people on board, police said.
Seven Italians, two Germans and two Spaniards were killed, along with two crew members, according to a spokesman for the transport ministry, who said the victims ranged in age from 24 to 78.
The crash occurred shortly after 1:00 p.m. local time, after the Cessna 208 Caravan aircraft took off from the airport in Pisco, about 240 kilometres south of the capital, Lima.
“We have information that 11 passengers and two crew members have died. Given the severity of the accident, there are no survivors. We have recovered four bodies so far,” Police Major Jorge Andrade told reporters at the crash site, without identifying the victims or giving further details on the cause.
Investigators Probe ‘In-Flight Emergency’
Overnight, police recovered the charred remains from the wreckage for transport to the regional morgue, while firefighters and forensic teams examined the twisted, smouldering remains of the aircraft.
Peru’s civil aviation authority and its air accident agency will investigate the crash, according to the transport ministry.
The plane was operated by AeroDiana, which offers sightseeing flights lasting 30 minutes to an hour over the Nazca Lines, a group of geoglyphs etched into the desert sands dating between 500 BC and 500 AD.
UNESCO, which declared the site a World Heritage location in 1994, notes that the meaning behind the shapes remains unclear, with some researchers believing they served ritual or astronomical purposes.
Municipal officials in Vista Alegre, where the plane went down, said preliminary information pointed to an “in-flight emergency,” without offering further detail. AeroDiana told another online media, AFP, that it would soon release more information about the crash.
Pattern of Fatal Crashes Near Tourist Site
One Vista Alegre resident said the plane exploded on impact.
Dozens of small planes operate from the Pisco airport, handling a large volume of mostly foreign tourists hoping to view the Nazca Lines from the air, and accidents have occurred there before.
Seven people, including two Chileans and three Dutch nationals, died in a plane crash near the site in 2022. In October 2010, four British tourists and two Peruvian crew members died when an AirNasca plane crashed after taking tourists to view the geoglyphs.
Following the latest crash, Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori said her government was considering the possible closure of the Pisco airport pending the outcome of the investigation.
