PICELJ, Yugoslavia -- A clipped tail section tossed beside a pile of glass and metal shards seemed the only identifiable piece left Saturday of an aid agency plane that slammed into a desolate mountain in northern Kosovo and killed all 24 people on board.
The location of the wrecked plane reflected how heartbreakingly close it came to avoiding the crash -- it was only a few yards from the top of a 4,600-foot mountain it struck in foggy weather Friday.The commander of NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo, Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, said there was still no indication of what went wrong.
Investigators from France, Italy and the international civil aviation board traveled to Kosovo on Saturday to determine what caused the crash of the regular charter flight run by the World Food Program to ferry humanitarian workers to the province.
Rescue workers found the plane's flight recorder, Reinhardt said. There was no word on what information it contained.
At an emotional news conference, the U.N.'s top administrator for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner seemed near tears as he related the news of the deaths. "They came to help others, and they died for that," he told reporters. "This business is not easy -- helping the people has never been easy."
NATO peacekeepers retrieved all the bodies of 24 people, NATO spokesman Maj. Ole Irgens said. A list of victims released in Rome by the World Food Program showed 12 Italians on board. The others came from Ireland, Britain, Kenya, Spain, Bangladesh, Canada, Iraq and Germany.
Contrary to earlier reports, the area of the crash was not strewn with land mines, making recovery of bodies easier.
The turboprop ATR-42 disappeared while on approach to Pristina about two hours after leaving Rome, NATO officials said. The wreckage was discovered on a steep slope in a direct line of flight to Pristina's airport, Irgens said.