Some Walk Away From Peru Crash

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

(CBS/AP)  Jose Reyna, 30, said he had come with three siblings to say farewell to their father, Jose Lino Reyna, 57, a medical technician killed in the crash. Only one of his brothers got on the plane.

"My father died and they have identified him. They recognized him by his clothes and his cell phone," Reyna said.

According to officials and radio reports, the plane circled the airport, then crash-landed near a highway. The pilot radioed that he could not land because of strong winds and torrential rains, airport receptionist Norma Pasquel told AP by phone.

"I felt a strong impact and a light and fire. (I) felt I was in the middle of flames around the cabin, until I saw to my left a hole to escape through," survivor Yuri Salas told the broadcaster Radioprogramas. "Two other people were struggling to get out and I also was able to."

He said he heard another person shouting to him to keep advancing because the plane was going to explode. "The fire was fierce despite the storm," he said. "Hail was falling and the mud came up to my knees."

Canal N television broadcast photo images of survivors being carried on stretchers from a grassy field strewn with wreckage.

Tomas Ruiz, another passenger, told Radioprogramas: "It seems it was a matter of the weather. Ten minutes before we were to land in Pucallpa, the plane began to shake a lot."

Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday he was praying for the victims of the crash as well as those grieving for the tragedy.

The pope offers prayers "for the eternal rest of the dead and offers fervent prayers so that the Lord grants solace to those who are weeping over the lamentable tragedy," said a telegram of condolence sent by the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Airline disasters this month have killed 330 people. The previous deadliest month was May 2002, with three major crashes that killed at least 485.

One common factor in several of the crashes is the weather, said Bill Waldock, an aviation safety professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona Waldock said.

More plane crashes tend to happen in August, because thunderstorms — especially dangerous to planes — are more frequent.

"It's one of those odd little blips. Quite a few accidents have happened in August," he said, citing U.S. airline crashes in 1985, 1987 and 1988.

Last week, 160 people died when a Colombian-registered West Caribbean charter went down in Venezuela. Two days earlier, 121 people died when a Cyprus-registered Helios Airways Boeing plunged into the mountains north of Athens.

Sixteen people were believed to have died Aug. 6 when a plane operated by Tunisia's Tuninter crashed off Sicily. In Toronto, all 309 people survived aboard an Air France Airbus A340 that overshot the runway on Aug. 2.

In January 2003, a TANS twin engine Fokker 28 turbojet, plowed into a 11,550-foot high mountain in Peru's northern jungle, killing all 42 passengers — including eight children — and four crew members aboard.