Mexico suspends charter company in Cuba airliner crash

By The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY – Mexican authorities temporarily suspended a charter company which owned a passenger jet that crashed in Cuba, while Cuban media said one of three survivors died Monday, increasing the death toll to 111.

Mexico’s General Directorate of Civil Aviation said in a statement that the suspension was ordered to allow an “extraordinary” review to verify whether Aerolineas Damojh, which uses the commercial name Global Air, is complying with the law.

Authorities also want to compile information to help with an investigation launched by the Cuban government into the cause of Friday’s crash.

Cuban state radio and television stations said Gretell Landrove Font, 23, died Monday afternoon of extensive injuries she sustained in the crash.

Landrove’s mother, Amparo Font, had told reporters that her daughter was a flamenco dancer and engineering student on the verge of graduation.

The two remaining survivors — Mailen Diaz, 19, and Emiley Sanchez, 39 — were hospitalized in Havana in critical condition. Both are from the eastern Cuba city of Holguin.

Mexico and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board have announced they would send experts to Cuba to help in the investigation, and Havana has said that Boeing, which made the airliner, is participating.

The 39-year-old Boeing 737 was rented from Damojh and operated by Cuban state-run airline Cubana de Aviacion, with a Global Air flight crew.

It crashed in a fireball just after takeoff Friday from Havana’s international airport bound for the eastern Cuban city of Holguin.

Mexico’s aviation directorate said the company had been suspended twice before, in 2010 and 2013, but was allowed to resume operations after addressing security questions.

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