Philippine minister's body found in wreckage

Rescue team retrieves body of Interior Minister Jesse Robredo off Masbate coastline, three days after his plane crashed.

The minister's body was retrieved three days after his plane crashed [Reuters]

Philippine officials say the body of Jesse Robredo, the interior secretary, has been found and retrieved from the sea off a central province where his small plane crashed three days ago. Mar Roxas, the transport secretary, said that Robredo's body was pulled out of the water early on Tuesday morning from the fuselage of the twin-engine Piper Seneca, 55 metres underwater and about 800 metres off Masbate province. The bodies of the two pilots, one of whom was a Nepalese flight student, were still being removed from the wreckage,Roxas said. "Sad as it is, we are now in search and recovery and retrieval," he said. Robredo was heading to his hometown of Naga City from central Cebu City on Saturday when the plane developed engine trouble and crashed as it attempted an emergency landing at the Masbate airport. Robredo, 54, was in charge of the national police and provincial governments.