By Enrique Andres Pretel
MERIDA, Venezuela (Reuters) - All 46 people on board diedwhen a Venezuelan passenger plane slammed into the sheer faceof a foggy Andean mountain after veering off course aftertakeoff, officials said on Friday.
Rescuers rappelled from helicopters to search for remainsin the shattered wreckage lodged 13,000 feet (4,000 meters)above sea level on a craggy, rock wall known as "Indian Face."
The blue-and-white tail of the twin-engine plane rested onthe mountainside, which was charred by flames. Pieces of whitefuselage and other remains from the crash littered the area,images from a video shot by searchers showed.
Whipped by cross-winds, rescue mountain-climbers struggledto lower themselves down the cliff to reach the plane operatedby the small local airline Santa Barbara, civil defence chiefAntonio Rivero said.
"This plane was found completely wrecked, smashed againstthe face of one of the mountains," Rivero said. "Unfortunatelyeveryone aboard died."
With few clearings to land choppers, searchers set up campalmost a mile (a kilometre) away and trekked across the ruggedterrain to the wreckage. The plane crashed 6 miles (10 km) fromthe tourist city of Merida after taking off for the capitalCaracas on Thursday before dusk in a notoriously difficultregion to navigate.
"It makes your heart ache. Venezuela is in mourning,"President Hugo Chavez said in a televised speech.
He pledged a thorough investigation into what caused thecrash. The mountainous region is known for their condors andadventure trails.
For years, Venezuelans have debated whether the Meridaairport should be shut because it is hemmed in among mountains,although its accident record is not especially noteworthy.
The weather had been good, and the roughly 20-year-oldplane had a solid maintenance record and no history oftechnical problems, authorities said. The pilot was experiencedand had specialized training for flying through the Andes.
The pilot made no distress calls before crashing with 43passengers and a crew of three aboard.
HOPE AND LUCK
A well-known Venezuelan political analyst, a local mayorand his 11-year-old son and an American woman working at theVenezuelan arm of financial services company Stanford FinancialGroup were among those killed, authorities said.
Olivia Gil, who was related to a woman on board, foughtback tears behind wide sunglasses but kept up hope for amiracle.
"They have given us the news that there's nothing there,that there are no survivors but now rescuers are going in tolook," she said. "We just don't know."
Freddy Belisario, an insurance company worker, consideredhimself a survivor. He had been scheduled to take the flightbut moved up his trip by a few hours "on an impulse."
"It's a day when I was not on the list (to die). My timewas not due," he told Reuters, adding he would not be flyingfor a while because "I don't want to push my luck."
Pilots need special training to fly from Merida andaircraft are banned from flying there at night. The plane thatcrashed on Thursday was the day's last flight out.
Santa Barbara is a small airline that covers domesticroutes and has seven Merida flights a day. The plane was an ATR42-300, a turboprop built by ATR, a French-Italian jointventure between EADS and Finmeccanica.
French investigators and an ATR team were going toVenezuela to help in the probe of the crash.
Thursday's was the second major air accident in Venezuelathis year. Last month, 14 people, including eight Italians andone Swiss passenger, died when a plane crashed into theCaribbean close to a group of Venezuelan islands.
(Additional reporting by Brian Ellsworth, Ana IsabelMartinez and Fabian Cambero in Caracas; Writing by Saul Hudson;Editing by Patricia Zengerle)