Venezuelan passenger plane missing with 46 aboard

The plane operated by local airline Santa Barbara flew outof the high-altitude city of Merida headed for the capitalCaracas roughly 300 miles (500 km) away. By late Thursday ithad been out of contact with air traffic controllers for hours.

Mountain villagers reported hearing a huge noise, whichmight have been caused by the plane crashing, so search teamswere heading to the remote zone, Gerardo Rojas, a regionalcivil defence official chief, said in a telephone interview.

The civil aviation authority said the plane was carrying 43passengers and three crew members, although other reports saidthere were 45 people on board.

National Civil Defense chief Antonio Rivero said despiteteams scouring where the plane was suspected to have crashed,the aircraft was still officially listed only as missing.

"This causes a lot of fear, a lot of pain," he said.

The plane was an ATR 42-300, a turboprop plane built byFrench-Italian company ATR, the civil aviation authority saidin a statement.

The ATR-42 series has been involved in at least 17accidents since the plane first flew in 1984, according to theAviation Safety Network, a private air safety monitoringagency.

Thursday's was the second serious incident involving aVenezuelan passenger plane in Venezuela this year after a planecarrying 14 people, including eight Italians and one Swisspassenger, crashed into the sea close to a group of Venezuelanislands in January. There were no survivors.

(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel, Saul Hudson and Ana IsabelMartinez; writing by Frank Jack Daniel; editing by MohammadZargham)