Tourist Plane Crashes in Costa Rica

S A N  J O S E, Costa Rica, Aug. 28 -- Rescue workers located the wreckageSunday of a small plane that crashed into the 5,360-foot Arenalvolcano with two pilots and eight foreign passengers on board.

“They are arriving where the plane is and finding scatteredpieces” of it, an unidentified Red Cross worker told localChannel 7 television, which broadcast shots of the site from ahelicopter.

As of Sunday afternoon, rescuers had not found any survivors.The Red Cross said two bodies were located inside the airplane,while television footage showed other bodies scattered on theground.

Reports surfaced on Saturday that emergency flares had beenfired in the area.

Deadly Volcano

The airline, National Aerial Services, or Sansa, told TheAssociated Press on Sunday that the passengers included three womenfrom Canada, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, respectively. Theydid not release their names or the nationalities of the other fivepassengers.

On Saturday, Red Cross and police officials said two Swiss womenwere on board.

The pilot and co-pilot were identified as Karl AcevedoNevermann, 22, and William Bobadilla, both from Costa Rica.

Saturday’s crash was apparently the second deadly encounter inless than a week with the Arenal volcano. A tour guide diedThursday after helping a 49-year-old Wellesley woman and her8-year-old daughter to safety after the volcano erupted.

Despite third-degree burns, Ignacio Protti, 28, picked upRaleigh Goldberg and her mother, Caryanne Ruffin and led them tosafety.

Protti died hours later.

Mother and daughter were flown to a Texas hospital with severeburns. Ruffin showed signs of improvement Sunday, but her daughteris “really, really sick,” according to Dr. Paul McCarthy of theUniversity of Texas Medical Center in Galveston.

“She’s probably as critical as she can be,” McCarthy told theBoston Herald.

Ruffin, a teacher at Beaver Country Day School in Brookline, andher daughter were on a guided tour of volcano — which has beenactive for 32 years—when it erupted six times.