Quito, Ecuador — An Ecuadorean jetliner carrying 92 people, including seven children, disappeared Monday in the fogbound Andes Mountains along the Colombia-Ecuador border, the airline said.
TAME airlines spokeswoman Toa Quirola initially said the plane crashed in Colombian territory near Ipiales, just across the border from Tulcan. But the airline said later that it wasn't sure what had happened to the plane.
"As of now there is no official information that confirms the situation of the plane and its 92 passengers," an airline statement said.
TAME's airport chief Jorge Godrillo said after nightfall that three planes and one helicopter had combed the area near Ipiales but could not find a crash site. Search efforts had been suspended until this morning, he said.
The TAME airline Boeing 727-100 from Ecuador's capital, Quito, was headed to the Ecuadorean border city of Tulcan, 110 miles to the northeast. Its flight plan took it over the Colombian city of Ipiales, the airline said.
The mayor's office of Ipiales said the city was foggy at the time the plane disappeared.
Martin Gonzalez, spokesman for Colombia's Civil Aviation authority, told The Associated Press that authorities were trying to confirm reports that farmers near the Colombian town of Cumbal, 12 miles northwest of Ipiales, heard a big explosion that could have been a crash.
The town is near the plane's approach path to Tulcan.
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