Australian was on crashed jet: report

August 24, 2005 - 1:05PM

An Australian was today reported as being on board a Peruvian Boeing 737-200 jet that crashed in Peru, killing at least 48 of the 100 people on board

Eleven foreigners, including seven US passengers, were on the flight, according to a Tans Airlines' flight list quoted by Agence France Presse.

The remaining foreigners listed were the one Australian, two Italian nationals and a Spanish citizen.

An airline spokeswoman said the Australian passenger's name was Tomas Kirralee. The airline could not confirm if Mr Kirralee survived the crash.

A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Secretary Bruce Billson said the Government was aware of the plane crash but was not yet able to confirm an Australian was aboard the plane."There is no confirmation that an Australian was aboard the plane," he said.

Mr Billson's spokesman said Australia did not have an embassy in Peru but had a consulate-general in Lima."Staff from there are liaising with local authorities to find out whether there was an Australian on board [the plane]," he said.

At least 52 of the 93 passengers and seven crew members survived the crash of the Tans Airlines flight from Lima, Tans airline company spokesman Jorge Belevan said.

Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo had said earlier that only about 20 or 30 of the passengers and crew had survived, while Transportation Minister Jose Ortiz had previously said most of those aboard had survived.

The jet crashed in bad weather near the Amazon jungle city of Pucallpa.

It was not clear if the foreign passengers survived the crash, only that they were listed as being passengers on the flight by the airline.

Four of the US citizens were members of the same family, according to the list>>>continued

Link Here

Survivors crawled from burning wreckage
Four dead as plane goes down in Switzerland
Horror run of August crashes