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King honors Spanish crash victims
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A state funeral is taking place for the 62 Spanish soldiers who died when their Ukrainian-chartered airliner crashed in heavy fog in northeastern Turkey two days earlier. King Juan Carlos is presiding over the funeral Mass at Madrid's Torrejon Air Base. Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and other government officials are also present. The king met with relatives of the dead before the service began. "At least one woman shouted the word 'assassin' before the king came up to talk to her," CNN's Al Goodman said. "It wasn't clear who she was directing that to," he added. Spanish newspapers have criticized the government for apparently hiring relatively inexpensive planes and crews from former Soviet republics to transport the peacekeeping troops. "The nation is in shock," Goodman said. "In addition to the shock, there are also many questions arising here as to whether Spain's defense ministry tried to cut costs by hiring a transport plane from Eastern Europe -- a charge that the government denies." The coffins of the soldiers, who were returning from peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, arrived at the base, near Madrid's civilian airport, on board three transport planes on Wednesday. In all 75 people aboard the plane died in the accident, the biggest single-day loss of life of Spanish military personnel since 1975. The 13 crew members on the plane, 12 Ukrainians and 1 from Belarus, also died. The Spanish forces included 40 soldiers, 21 members of the air force, and one member of Spain's paramilitary Civil Guard, the Defense Ministry said in a written statement. Twenty-one of the Spanish soldiers who died were stationed at a Zaragoza air force base and seven of the 62 were born in the city, located 310 kilometers (192 miles) northeast of Madrid.
In an interview late Monday with Spanish state radio, Defense Minister Federico Trillo said authorities had found one of the plane's data recorders. Bad weather continued to be the leading theory about why the plane crashed. The doomed flight to Spain left Kabul Monday. The peacekeepers were returning from a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. Some 140 Spanish peacekeepers remain in Afghanistan. Trillo said the plane had made two unsuccessful attempts to land at a refueling stop at Trabzon Airport in the northeastern Turkish city of Macka before it crashed into a hillside in thick fog, Trillo said. The crash site is about 40 km (25 miles) north of Macka. The plane that crashed was a Ukrainian Yakolev-42 and was attached to a NATO-related European agency. The agency is typically involved in long-distance troop transport by nations involved in international peacekeeping missions, the Spanish Defense Ministry said. Trillo has defended the plane's record, saying it has been a reliable flying machine used by 130 countries for troop transport. The plane that crashed, he said, was built in 1995. -- CNN Turk's Fatih Turkmenoglu and CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman contributed to this report. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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