Cockpit voice recorder recovered from aircraft crash site in Cuba

Investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the crash site near Havana of a Boeing 737 aircraft operated by Cuba’s national airline Cubana de Aviacion.

The aircraft was being operated on lease from Mexican charter company Global Aerolineas Damojh. It crashed to the ground shortly after it took off from Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, killing 110 people on-board.

Only three of the 113 people on the flight survived the crash.

The plane with tail number XA-UHZ was en-route to Holguin in eastern Cuba before it crashed into a nearby field.

Authorities have yet to retrieve the flight data recorder from the 39-year-old plane, reported heraldcourier.com.

Cuba Transportation Minister Abdel Yzquierdo Rodriguez said that Cubana de Aviacion had been renting the plane for less than a month under a deal that requires Damojh to be responsible for aircraft maintenance.

Cuba hired the crew of the crashed plane from Mexico, as the country did not have certified pilots to fly the Boeing 737.

According to Guyana authorities and former pilots of Cubana de Aviacion, Damojh had previously been accused of two serious complaints regarding the performance of its crews over the last decade, reported Associated Press.

Last year, Guyanese authorities prohibited the crashed aircraft from entering the country after finding that its crew had been allowing dangerous overloading of luggage on flights to Cuba.

Following the recent accident, the Government of Mexico has directed its National Civil Aviation Authority to conduct an operational audit of Damojh to see if it has been following current regulations while operating flights and to help Cuba investigate the latest crash.

Boeing said in a statement: “A Boeing technical team stands ready to assist as permitted under US law and at the direction of the US National Transportation Safety Board and the Cuban authorities.”