Plane crashes into busy street in Haitian capital

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - A small plane crashed onto a busy street in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday, Prime Minister Ariel Henry said, adding that the incident had caused both deaths and injuries.

"I extend my sympathies to the families of the victims, who have been just plunged into the greatest desolation by this new tragedy," Henry wrote on Twitter, without specifying the number of dead or wounded.

The plane took off from Port-au-Prince at 3:44 p.m. ET (1944 GMT) on route to the Haitian city of Jacmel, the Haitian civil aviation authority told Reuters, adding that it received a distress alert at 4:04 p.m. The plane crashed in the commune of Carrefour.

Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported that six people were believed to have been killed.

Haiti's civil protection authority did not immediately respond to a request for further details.

Videos circulating on WhatsApp showed the twisted wreckage of a plane in the middle of a road along with what appeared to the bodies of victims of the crash. Reuters was unable to independently verify the origin of the videos.

(Reporting by Ralph Tedy Erol in Port-au-Prince and Gessika Thomas in Istanbul, writing by Brian Ellsworth in Nassau; editing by Diane Craft)