VENEZUELA - Rescue workers search for the bodies of passengers who died in a West Caribbean Airways passenger plane that crashed with 160 people on board in the Sierra de Perija area near Machiques in western Venezuela, yesterday. All passengers died in the Colombian chartered jet carrying vacationers home from Panama to the French Caribbean island of Martinique. (Photo: AP)

DUCOS, Martinique (AP) - The elderly couple, celebrating 50 years of marriage, set off on vacation amid a flurry of goodbyes from children and grandchildren. Their extended family was back at the airport yesterday to greet their return - but received terrible news instead.

Paul Berisson, 79, and his wife, George, 70, who were travelling with nearly three dozen friends, were among 160 people killed when a chartered jet filled with tourists returning home to the small French Caribbean island of Martinique crashed in a wooded area of western Venezuela.

News of the crash sent shock waves of grief throughout Martinique, where much of the tight-knit population counted friends and relatives among the victims.

"What consoles us is that they were together to the end," said Giselle Berisson, 45, the elderly couple's daughter. "The day of their departure, the whole family was there to say goodbye to them. We made a family meal to say goodbye. That consoles us, too."

The West Caribbean Airways flight reported engine trouble and had requested permission to make an emergency landing when it crashed near the Venezuelan farming town of Machiques, officials said.

The 152 passengers were all from Martinique, a French island of 432,000 people. Most were civil servants and their families, including a 21-month-old infant. Eight crew members, who were also killed, were from Colombia.

"Martinique is a small place - 152 people dead, you imagine," said Magalie Grivallier, a Martinique government spokeswoman. "It means virtually everybody had a cousin on that plane."

At Martinique's airport, relatives broke down in sobs as a lawmaker read out the names of the victims.

"The airport was a nightmare in itself, all these families waiting for news. Some knew, and just went away crying," said George Venkapaten, whose 48-year-old brother was killed with his wife and six-year-old son.

"It's still hard to believe," Venkapaten said. "My brother and all his family are gone."

In the nearby town of Ducos, where about 30 of the victims reportedly lived, about 150 distraught friends and relatives gathered outside city hall.

"I don't understand. It's as though the sky fell on my head today," said Claire Renette, 40, whose sister was among the dead.

Relatives of the eight crew members rushed to the airline's offices in Colombia's capital of Bogota.

Carlos Pena said his daughter, a flight attendant, had not been scheduled to fly, but agreed to fill in when the airline asked at the last minute. Angela Patricia Pena Valencia, who was turning 21 next month, had been devoted to her job, her father said.

"She did not have a flight last night but they asked for her help," Pena said. "And she agreed with pleasure."

French Transport Minister Dominique Perben said West Caribbean Airways had operated a charter since spring between Panama and the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

French aviation authorities checked the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 plane twice since May, but found nothing unusual, he said.

At the travel agency that chartered the flight, Globe Trotters Voyage, an employee, who did not give his name, sobbed as he answered the phone and referred questions to the company's owner, who did not respond to messages.
"One hundred and fifty-two people, it's really painful," the employee said.

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