( dpa ) - Search teams recovered the flight recorder Saturday from the wreckage of a Venezuelan airliner, which crashed high in the Andes with 46 people on board.
There were no survivors when the ATR-42, a twin-engine propellor aircraft, disappeared from radar screens during a domestic flight from Merida to Maiquetia.
The Santa Barbara Airlines flight lost radio contact about 40 minutes into a scheduled two-hour journey, and the wreckage was spotted hours later in a remote, mountainous site at an altitude of 4,750 metres. Rescue teams reached the wreckage only on Friday; there was no one alive and the aircraft was pulverized by the impact.
Venezuelan authorities hope that the flight recorder will provide clues to the cause of the crash.
Venezuela aviation authorities said that 36 people were working on a recovery team at the site, about 600 kilometres south-west of Caracas. Recovery of human remains was expected to continue for at least two days.