All 14 people onboard a small commercial plane were killed when it crashed Monday morning near the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, Honduran authorities said.


Rescue workers remove the body of a victim from the debris of a plane which crashed in Las Mesitas, 20 km north of Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras, on Feb. 14, 2011. The Central American Airways LET L-410, on the flight from San Pedro Sula to Tegucigalpa, crashed near the mountains in Las Mesitas Monday morning, killing 14 people including a former Honduran Minister of Economy and a union leader, according to local emergency authorities. (Xinhua/Rafael Ochoa)
Among the victims were Vice Minister of Public Works, Transportation and Housing Rodolfo Robelo, trade union leader Israel Salinas and businessman Carlos Chain, Central American Airways manager Jose Francisco Pacheco said.


The light plane was a blue Let 410 with 12 passengers and two pilots onboard.


"It was the flight 731 and I do not understand what happened," Pacheco said.


The accident occurred at 7:30 a.m. local time (1300 GMT) in Las Mesitas community of Hula Hill, some 30 kilometers south of Tegucigalpa.


Meanwhile, director of Civil Aeronautics Manuel Caceres told reporters that so far they do not have information about the cause of the accident and an investigation will take some days.


"There is not a time parameter, so it could take many days, I do not want to speculate with the time to give a final result," Caceres said.


Honduran Foreign Minister Mario Canahuati and directors Minister of the National Agriculture Institute Cesar Ham luckily missed the flight that they were booked on. Ham did not arrive on time at the airport while Canahuati decided at the last moment to take another plane.


VietNamNet/Xinhuanet