http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/11/05/cuba.plane.crash/index.html?hpt=T2Havana, Cuba (CNN)
Search crews combed through charred rubble in central Cuba early Friday after a fiery plane crash killed 68 people, state media reported.
The Aerocaribbean plane was carrying 40 Cubans and 28 foreigners, the state-run website Cubadebate said. None of them survived the crash, the website said.
Photos from the local newspaper Escambray posted on Cubadebate early Friday showed rescue crews using heavy machinery to comb through the debris. Flames still engulfed part of the plane.
The flight was traveling from the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba and heading to the country's capital, Havana, Cubadebate reported.
The Civil Aviation Institute of Cuba said Flight 883 lost contact with air traffic controllers around 5:42 p.m. Thursday (4:42 p.m. ET Thursday), Cubadebate said.
The plane crashed in a rural part of the central province of Sancti Spiritus, Cubadebate said. Residents in the area said the plane made several sudden movements before plunging to the ground.
Authorities were still trying to determine what caused the crash, state media said.
A list of victims posted on the Cubadebate site comprised of 40 Cubans, nine people from Argentina, seven people from Mexico, three people from the Netherlands, two people from Germany, two people from Austria and one person each from Spain, France, Italy, Japan and Venezuela.
Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner ordered a plane to Cuba to retrieve the bodies of the nine victims from her country, according to the state-run Telam news agency of Argentina. The Argentine Foreign Ministry also provided a phone number for relatives of the deceased to call to obtain more information.
Preliminary reports indicate that the plane crashed near the Zaza Reservoir, the largest reservoir in Cuba, according to state media.
All the doctors in Sancti Spiritus have been mobilized, according to a hospital worker who declined to give her name because she was not authorized to speak to the media. The hospital worker said she saw the plane crash from 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) away.
"When it hit the ground, it burst into flames," she said.
The last plane crash in Cuba occurred in March 2002, Cubadebate said, when a plane carrying tourists went down in the central province of Villa Clara. Sixteen people were killed in that crash.
