A Cuban state airliner crashed and burned moments after takeoff from Havana on Friday, killing nearly all 114 people aboard the nearly 40-year-old plane.
It was one of the worst airline crashes in Cuba, which has been struggling to operate with a decrepit fleet of planes that it has blamed partly on the longstanding economic embargo imposed by the United States.
As emergency responders rushed to the scene, footage from the crash site showed plumes of thick black smoke rising. The crushed fuselage, seemingly ripped in pieces, lay in thick vegetation as firefighters doused it with hoses. A crowd rushed in and pulled at least one person on a stretcher from the tangled remains.
State television said the flight had been headed to Holguín, on the eastern part of the island. The plane, a Boeing 737 leased by Cubana de Aviación, a state-run Cuban airline, first went into service in 1979, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency, making it one of the older 737s still in commercial operation.
Media reported that it remained unclear what caused the crash, but it came against the backdrop of Cuba’s struggle to improve commercial aviation on the island, which has long faced economic constraints from the United States embargo.
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