The French-made ATR 42-300 aircraft lost contact with air traffic towers 30 minutes after the take-off from Merida, and failed to report difficulties before crashing.

Search teams were immediately sent to survey the area, after residents of the mountainous area reported having heard a crash. 

“The crashed plane practically disintegrated, and only debris can be seen in a rugged zone,” the head of Venezuela's civil protection service, General Antonio Rivero, said after flying over the site.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez confirmed that "46 people died in an accident shortly after their plane took off," and offered his condolences to the victims' families.

Chavez declared that “Venezuela is in mourning” and demanded a full investigation, the Associated Press reports.

The plane took off in good weather, and the Santa Barbara Airline, owner of the crashed aircraft, said that the pilot had received a special training to fly a plane on that route.

“By the way it crashed we can determine there are no survivors,” General Ramon Vinas, head of the civil aviation authority. Vinas announced that the Santa Barbara Airlines flight crashed at an altitude of 13,500 feet in an area known as Los Conejos plateau within Sierra La Culata National Park. It was just 6 miles from the Merida airport.

There were 43 passengers and 3 crew members on board. The passenger list included Vivian Guarch, an American citizen who was employed by Stanford Financial Group and was on a business trip to Merida; Italo Luongo, a prominent Venezuelan foreign policy analyst; and the mayor of a town in Mérida State and his 11-year-old son, according to the government news agency.

General Antonio Rivero said that the weather forced the suspension of the search operation on Friday. The search teams will return to the crash site on Saturday morning. He said that it will be very difficult to pull out the human bodies from under the debris.