Some Walk Away From Peru Crash

However, At Least 31 People Were Killed And 10 Are Missing

(CBS/AP)  Rescuers combed a jungle marsh Wednesday for victims of a Peruvian airliner that split in two after an emergency landing during a hailstorm, killing at least 31 people and leaving 10 missing. Fifty-seven people escaped the burning wreckage, wading away through knee-deep mud.

TANS Peru Flight 204 was the world's fifth major airline accident in August, making it the deadliest month for plane disasters in three years.

The Boeing 737-200 was carrying 98 people, including a crew of six, on a domestic flight from the Peruvian capital of Lima to the Amazon city of Pucallpa, airline spokesman Jorge Belevan said at a news conference in giving the first extensive details of the accident. It had previously said an estimated 100 people were aboard.

Belevan said there were at least 57 survivors, with 31 bodies recovered and 10 people still missing. He said the missing might include survivors from Pucallpa who returned to their homes after the crash without receiving medical assistance.

On Tuesday night, police Lt. David Mori had told The Associated Press that 41 bodies had been recovered, 56 survivors were being treated at hospitals and three people were still missing.

In strong winds and torrential rains, the pilot circled the airport, then tried to make an emergency landing about 20 miles away. He aimed for the marsh to soften the impact, but the landing split the aircraft, said Edwin Vasquez, president of the Ucayali region where the city is located.

Moments before the plane went down, the pilot warned controllers he was unable to land at a nearby airport due to violent weather, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr.

He tried to land in a marsh to soften the impact but the landing split the aircraft in two, Vasquez said.

"We began feeling turbulence, which was very slight at first, and then it became stronger and stronger. And the next thing I knew, there were people screaming," survivor Monica Glen told CBS News Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith, one of 11 Americans on board. "Our plane hit the ground. There were flames coming from the cockpit. I assume that was where the initial impact took place."

Wind shear — a potentially dangerous sudden change in wind speed or direction, often during a thunderstorm — possibly botched the emergency landing, said TANS spokesman Jorge Belevan. He said there did not appear to have been a technical failure in the 22-year-old aircraft.

Search teams have recovered the plane's cockpit voice recorder, said Pablo Arevalo, a prosecutor in the jungle city of Pucallpa.

Among the dead were at least three foreigners — an American woman, an Italian man and a Colombian woman, Mori said. Many bodies could not immediately be identified.

In Lima, relatives of passengers and crew were at the airport trying to board a special flight to Pucallpa.