*Cuba declares two-day mourning after 107 die in plane crash*

Cuba begins two days of national mourning on Saturday for victims of the crash of a state airways plane that killed all but three of its 110 passengers and crew. President Miguel Diaz-Canel said an investigation was underway into Friday’s crash of the nearly 40-year-old Boeing 737, leased to the national carrier Cubana de Aviacion by a Mexican company.

Three women pulled alive from the mangled wreckage are the only known survivors. The Boeing crashed shortly after taking off from Jose Marti airport, coming down in a field near the airport and sending a thick column of acrid smoke into the air.

The mourning period is to last from 6:00 am (1000 GMT) Saturday to midnight on Sunday, the Communist Party leader and former president Raul Castro said. Flags are to be flown at half-mast throughout the country. The plane was on an internal flight from Havana to the eastern city of Holguin. Most of the passengers were Cuban, with five foreigners, including two Argentines, among them.

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