Australia

Plane carrying 15 people crashes; all aboard killed

An airplane carrying 15 people slammed into a hillside in remote northeastern Australia on Saturday, killing everyone on board, authorities said.

A recovery operation was under way today on a rugged hillside in Queensland state where the twin-propeller plane crashed in Australia’s worst civil aviation disaster in almost four decades.

“We’ve just had a police officer winched in who has confirmed there are no signs of life,” state police spokeswoman Kirsten Roos told The Associated Press.

Peter Gibson of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority told Australian television’s Nine Network the plane had been flying in rain, low clouds and 23 mph winds when it crashed.

The twin-propeller Fairchild Metroliner, with two pilots and 13 passengers on board, was traveling to Lockhart River, an Aboriginal community of 350 people in Queensland, Jiggins said. The plane was en route from Bamaga, near the tip of the Cape York Peninsula, about 170 miles from Lockhart River.

The scheduled passenger flight of north Queensland-based airline Aero-Tropics had radioed that the plane was about to land before the crash, said police Supt. Michael Keating.

Japan

Nations urge N. Korea to return to talks

Asian and European nations urged North Korea on Saturday to return immediately to nuclear disarmament talks as concerns grew that the communist state was preparing to test an atomic bomb.

Pyongyang could expect the security assurance and financial assistance it seeks in return for a decision to abandon nuclear weapons development and return to six-nation negotiations, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said at a news conference.

A U.S. defense official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Friday that photos by U.S. spy satellites show North Korea making moves that could be construed as preparations for an underground nuclear test.

The ministers, wrapping up a two-day Asia-Europe Meeting in Japan, called on North Korea “to return to the negotiating table of the six-party talks without any further delay … to achieve the denuclearization of the peninsula in a peaceful manner through dialogue.”

Those talks include the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.