Remains of missing aircraft on the road to Antarctica

Alberto Espina said today that they had found the remains of some of the 38 passengers on the plane when it rose from the southernmost part of Chile.

A C-130 Hercules military plane with 38 passengers and crew left Monday afternoon from the Punta Arenas Base to the remote south of Chile for a planned maintenance flight to a Chilean base in Antarctica. Radio contact lost 70 minutes after the lift.

Within hours, the air force claimed that the plane was lost, but it was only yesterday that an inspection plane discovered for the first time floating waste believed to be from an extinct plane.

Officials said they believed all 38 people on the plane were dead.

“Practically it is impossible to have survivors,” said Arturo Merino, commander of the Chile Air Force at a news conference at a military base in Punta Arenas, 3,000 kilometers south of Santiago.