BUCHAREST, Romania — Responding to public anger over the delayed response to a plane crash, Romania’s prime minister dismissed a senior Interior Ministry official Wednesday, and the heads of the country’s air traffic control and emergency services resigned.
It took hours for rescuers to find the plane, which crashed on a mountain Monday.
All seven on board initially survived the landing. The 54-year-old pilot died from hypothermia and multiple injuries, according to an autopsy. A 23-year-old medical student on the plane died of hypothermia and breathing difficulties.
The small British plane was transporting medics to western Romania to harvest organs for transplant when it came down. None of the doctors who were on board the flight has said, however, that the delay caused the two deaths.
Deep snow, dense fog, and darkness hampered the search for the plane, which crashed at 4,600 feet above sea level, after it lost altitude in heavy fog on a remote mountain. Residents located the stricken plane 4½ hours after it crashed, but medical teams arrived much later, provoking public anger.