Romanian deputy interior minister sacked amid poor rescue after plane crash

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Wednesday announced the removal from office the Secretary of State in the Internal Ministry Catalin Chiper, criticizing unacceptable deficiencies in the rescue operation of the Monday aviation accident in the western County of Cluj. The prime minister asked at the same time the transport minister to replace the general manager of Romatsa (Romanian Air Traffic Services Administration) and the operations manager. Ponta made the decision after a government meeting earlier that analyzed a report on the action manner of all institutions involved in the rescue operation. According to Ponta, in three institutions -- the Interior Ministry, Romatsa and the Special Telecommunications Service -- things went "unacceptably" slow, when it came to the operations that were carried out following the Monday air crash. Two people were killed late Monday when a small plane they were traveling in crashed in a mountainous area in western Romania. The plane, a Britten-Norman Islander (BN2) belonging to the Romanian Aviation Academy, took off from Bucharest with two pilots and five medical personnel on board. The medical team was on its way to the northwestern city of Oradea to perform a surgical resection of a liver that had to be taken to Bucharest for organ donation. One of the two pilots died before the rescue team reached the crash site, an inaccessible wooded area in the village of Belis in the county of Cluj, more than six hours after the accident. A female doctor died later after she and the other five injured were brought down by rescuers from the crash site. The cause of death of Pilot Adrian Iovan is traumatic shock combined with hypothermia, and resident doctor Aurelia Ion lost her life because of hypothermia combined with respiratory disorders, caused by a trauma, revealed the results of the official autopsy.