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Updated at 3:30 a.m. ET: At least 13 people, including eight children, were killed when a plane crashed into a school near Manila, Philippines, The Philippine Star newspaper reports.
Published at 3:26 a.m. ET: MANILA, Philippines -- At least 11 people, including two children, were killed when a light plane crashed into a school building Saturday near the Philippine capital after its pilot requested an emergency landing shortly after takeoff, officials and the Red Cross said.
Mayor Florencio Bernabe of suburban Paranaque city said the plane burst into flames after hitting the F. Serrano Elementary School.
He said no classes were in session when the plane hit, but officials were determining how many on the ground were hurt or killed.
Police Senior Inspector Dennis Sirilan said the fire spread rapidly to nearby homes after the plane crashed.
He said it wasn't immediately clear how many people were on the plane, but the pilot and his co-pilot were missing.
Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwen Pang said 11 bodies have been recovered, including that of an infant and a child.
Civil Aviation Authority chief Ramon Gutierrez said the six-to-eight-seat plane sent out a distress call shortly after taking off from Manila airport for Mindoro Island. The plane crashed before being able to return to the airport.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Damn. Thats horrible. Send your kid to school and then... that happens. I can't imagine the grief.
robtu,
In this life there are no guarantees. You sound like such a selfish person..
ie:send kid to school, then poor me.. Please pray for all the people involved.
Jean..Absolutely no reason for your post. Selfish? The poster was simply pointing out that sometimes you think your kids are safe and sound in school and then something terrible like this happens. The shock must have been horrendous. Totally inappropriate and uncalled for to call this poster selfish. Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?
I agree, Colorblind. Robtzu is apparently a much more caring a sympathetic person than Jean. Selfish to not want your child killed?
Jean,
That's a really weird post you wrote there!!
She sounds a bit confused which, since she suggests 'praying', almost goes without saying. She may be related to that other confused individual who commented that the poor woman who walked into the propeller was being punished by g-d for selfishness or some such and deserved what happened. This blindness to others that religion damns a person to suffer so that they can feel adequate to be 'saved' or 'spend eternity on ecstasy' or [insert entirely self-centered 'reward'] is one of the major diseases of humanzees because, truly, there is no greater "selfishness" than living one's life in dedication to nothing but saving one's own butt from a malicious god who will cook your brisquet in the eternal oven of his 'love'... On the other hand, if these sorts of people did not have these internal superstitious 'controls', we'd have even more moral cripples slobbering to join our elite. Odd contradiction how religion poisons people yet keeps them more or less at bay. Except when they can hide behind a username, apparently.
"no classes were in session when the plane hit"
I'm sure it would have been worse had school been in session, not to say this wasn't a tragic accident. My family and I send our deepest sympathies to the families and friend that lost loved ones.
Thankfully it wasnt worse. Condolences to the people affected by this.
So the
'Jones'private stolen plane was destroyed with no valid coverage to pay forthe damages. I for one hate that friends.
-Chuck Yeagar, famous Global command leader and jet military battle piolet,
Airport Chiefs Magazine, Volume 48, late Fall edition.
What's with the barely related and wholly irrelevant quotes? I mean, if the quotes you post bore any relationship at all to the story at hand other than that, for example, this one was from a pilot and is posted under a story about a plane crash, that would be one thing. But they don't. The Naked Lunch was written 50 years ago; it sucked then, so no need to try recreating it with your bizarre posts.
What are you babbling about?
While praying for the families involved, I'm going to reserve judgement on what happened until the officials investigate to determine the facts.
One fact not in dispute, is the location of the school, near an active airport. Several problems with that, not the least is this accident.
The school is more than 2 km from the airport and is not in the normal flight path of airplanes. That troubled plane could have crashed anywhere while it is on its way back to the airport. It is just horrible that it crashed into the school.
BTW, if you google schools around La Guardia Airport, there are about 20 within that distance (not counting flight schools).
By all means flying must be banned. If man was meant to fly we would all have wings. I had a daughter killed in a horseback riding accident. Do I want horseback riding banned? I'm not that ignorant.
How awful...my heart goes out to those whose family were lost
So, if classes were not in session, what were all those people doing there? And, what was an infant doing in a school?
Perhaps the school building was being used for some community function, or children were playing on the playground, if it has one.
That's probably it. Just seemed strange. I didn't read in depth, but I just had the vague feeling that this occurred during what I would think of as normal school hours. Not sure why - just had that feeling.
Someone posted further down an article stating that the plane actually crashed into a slum near an elementary school, and the victims were residents, not students. The school was involved in the fire that followed.
I apologize for my rant above in this context. When I encounter such profound hurt in the lives of other people and I am involuntarily them for a moment, the pain and the accompanying sense of all of our insignificance and vulnerability and despair falls on me like death itself. Coming, then, upon such imperviousness, such blindness, to all that is human suffering, I lash out at it as at death itself. Religion is not the only cause for such blindness to others, the normal distribution of 'values' requires that some will be Mother Teresas and some will be Stalins and the rest of us will occupy intermediate distributions with greater and lesser sympathy, empathy, altruism... But religion seems a wholly unnecessary cause for such blindness, yet, it is epidemic upon us. One need only to look to the great religious state of texas who vaunt their christianity and their need to kill in the same breaths. Surely these people did not choose to live in such isolation from what it is to be a truly communal humans, nor do people who carry physical disease and transmit it unknowingly to others choose to do so, but we do. My rant came out of my own surety that, what these people in Manila face today, I will face tomorrow. And there is no g-d or prayer that will help me, only my fellow humans who see my pain and give me their support. Tragedy is no place for religious swill, only for understanding, as best as one can muster it. Let us hope that this is in abundance around these traumatized parents and relatives and friends at this time.
Hmmm
Why does it always seem to happen to innocents? Why couldn't it happen on a New Peoples Army hide-out or Raymon Skipper?
there are no specifics as to whether or not the children were passengers on the plane. as far as the school being located near an airport is irrelevant. the plane was attempting to return to the airport which might have the plane on a completely different trajectory other than what is used to takeoff and land normally. i have lived in the phillipines, not far from here at Cavite City, and can attest that people live in very cramped quarters in residential areas. the article does not specify the exact location of the crash. but there is a congested residential are to the south of the airport. and the direction of the plane to Mindoro is south as Luzon is the northern most Island of the 7,000 islands of the Philippines. i had the most exciting time in the Philippines in 1967-1969 when i was just 12-14 years old. my heart goes out to the families of those affected by this tragic incident.
MANILA, Philippines: A four-seater cargo plane crashed onto a crowded Philippine slum Saturday,
sparking a fire that killed 12 people including three children and left at least another 20 injured, officials said.
The crash killed the pilot and co-pilot, while the rest of the victims are thought to be residents of the
shanty town, said police chief inspector Enrique Sy.
"The plane struck one house but the others also went up in flames. These are informal settlers,
packed into rows of houses," Sy told reporters.
Florencio Bernabe, the mayor of Paranaque district where the crash occurred, said that at least 50 shanties burned down and at least 20 other injured victims had been taken to hospital.
Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the Philippine National Red Cross, the blaze engulfed a nearby elementary school, she said, but it was empty at the time because it was a weekend.
These are the facts unlike the susposed news being reported by MSNBC...see http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1170556/1/.html
Ugh some people just get out of context so quickly. And it's like every week a plane crashes. How terribl;e.