Venezuela crash investigators dig for bodies, clues

Investigators sifted for bodies and clues in the scattered remains of West Caribbean Airways flight 708 on Wednesday as France sent specialists to identify victims of the crash that killed all 160 aboard.
The Colombian jet, carrying tourists to the French Caribbean island Martinique from Panama, crashed nose first early on Tuesday morning after its engines failed in one of Venezuela's worst air disasters.
Recovery workers have found one of the aircraft's black box flight data recorders, but they struggled to remove bodies mutilated or buried by impact of the MD-82 aircraft now scattered over a remote cattle farm, authorities said.
"We are still working ... they are using machinery to cut through metal, chain saws to cut through trees, whatever we can to take the remains out," Colonel Antonio Rivero, head of Venezuela's Civil Protection agency, told Reuters from the crash site.
"I can't say how many bodies have been pulled out because what we are recovering are parts," he said.
Rivero said more than 90 percent of the remains had been transported to two morgues in Maracaibo where authorities will begin the difficult task of identification.
The West Caribbean charter flight was en route to Martinique when it reported problems with both its engines and requested permission to land at Maracaibo airport in western Venezuela. But minutes later air traffic control lost contact.
Authorities from Venezuela's National Institute of Civil Aviation were starting their investigation into the causes of the crash.
Most of the passengers were local government officials in Martinique who had been on holiday with their families and the 152 passengers included one baby and four children. The eight crew members were Colombian.
The French government said more than 1,500 calls had been made to a crisis unit set up in the French Foreign Ministry in Paris.
PREPARING FOR THE FAMILIES:
Three French officials have been sent to Maracaibo and four diplomats and a psychiatrist are expected to arrive later in the day from Paris in preparation for families who will travel from Martinique to identify their relatives' remains.
The French Interior Ministry has dispatched a team of 15 specialists in identifying victims to Martinique and another team of four has gone directly to Venezuela, officials said.
"The conditions under which we are recovering the mortal remains indicate that the process of recognition and above all of identification of the victims will be difficult," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters.
Farm workers told local television they had seen the aircraft in flames before it hit the ground.
West Caribbean, based in the Colombian city of Medellin, has been involved in two crashes this year.
In March, a West Caribbean Airways Let L-410 aircraft departing from Providencia, Colombia, failed to climb and hit hills close to the runway. Two crew and six passengers died in that accident.
The airline also operates two McDonnell Douglas MD-81s, two ATR42s and several smaller aircraft.
The MD-82 aircraft that crashed had passed a safety check by Colombian authorities on Monday. But the airline has been penalised before for excessive weight and safety violations, a Colombian officials said.
Boeing, which took over MD-82 maker McDonnell Douglas in 1997, said the company was dispatching a team of air safety investigators to help find the cause of the crash. The US government also offered to assist.