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A SMALL PLANE carrying foreign tourists to view Peru’s famed Nazca Lines archaeological site crashed Saturday, killing all 13 people on board.

Seven Italians, two Germans and two Spaniards were killed, along with two crew members, a spokesman for the transport ministry said.

The incident occurred shortly after 1pm (7pm Irish time) after the Cessna 208 Caravan took off from the airport in Pisco, located about 240 kilometres south of the capital Lima.

“We have information that 11 passengers and two crew members have died,” Police Major Jorge Andrade told reporters at the crash site.

“Given the severity of the accident, there are no survivors. We have recovered four bodies so far,” Andrade said, without identifying the victims.

He also did not give any immediate indication of what may have caused the crash.

Peru’s civil aviation authority and the air accident agency will investigate the accident, the transport ministry said. Agents were already on the scene collecting evidence.

Firefighters and police, some wearing face masks, were working amid the twisted, smoldering wreckage of the aircraft. Some carried garbage bags.

One wheel of the plane sat near the debris, completely detached from the aircraft.

Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori said her government was mulling the possible closure of the Pisco airport.

The Nazca Lines are a group of geoglyphs etched into the desert sands that date back to between 500 BC and 500 AD.

The meaning of the geometric shapes and animal outlines remains a mystery, with some believing they had ritual astronomical functions, according to UNESCO, which declared the area a World Heritage site in 1994.

The doomed plane was operated by AeroDiana, which offers sightseeing trips lasting 30 minutes to an hour over the site, which is best seen from the air.

AeroDiana told AFP that it would soon release more information about the crash.

Municipal officials in Vista Alegre, where the plane crashed, said in a statement that preliminary information indicated an “in-flight emergency” was to blame, without offering more details.

One resident of Vista Alegre said the plane exploded on impact.

Dozens of small planes operate from the airport in Pisco, handling a large volume of primarily foreign tourists hoping to visit the Nazca Lines.

Such accidents have occurred before. In 2022, seven people were killed in a plane crash, including two Chileans and three Dutch nationals.

In October 2010, four British tourists and two Peruvian crew members died when an AirNasca plane crashed after taking the tourists to view the site.

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