Cuban military plane crashes, killing 8 troops on board

HAVANA (AP) - A Cuban military plane crashed into a hillside Saturday morning in the western province of Artemisa, killing eight troops on board, the government said.

Cuba's military said in a statement that the Soviet-made AN-26 took off from the Playa Baracoa airport outside Havana at 6:38 a.m. and crashed outside the town of Candelaria about 40 miles (65 kilometers) away.

The military said a special commission would investigate the crash. The weather was clear and sunny.

Officials did not immediately release any further information.

In November 2010, an AeroCaribbean flight from Santiago to Havana went down in bad weather as it flew over central Cuba, killing all 68 people aboard, including 28 foreigners, in the country's deadliest air disaster in more than two decades. In 1989, a chartered Cubana de Aviacion plane en route from Havana to Milan, Italy, went down shortly after takeoff, killing all 126 people on board, as well as at least two dozen on the ground.