Heart transplant operation plane crashes in Sardinia

Four Italian doctors and two pilots died yesterday when their plane, carrying a heart for transplant, crashed in mountains on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, air safety officials said.

"They had removed a heart during the night and were transporting it for transplant this morning," a spokesman for air safety agency ANSV said.

The two pilots killed in the crash were Austrian. Police officials said the Cessna 500 plane had hit the Sette Fratelli, or Seven Brothers, mountain and was spotted on its summit.

Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia hailed the doctors as "heroes who every day, without drawing attention, sacrifice their lives to save those who are waiting for transplants".

Italian news agency Ansa said investigators found the heart in its container among the wreckage but that it was too badly damaged to be used.

The alarm had been raised after the plane, on its way back from Rome, failed to reply to messages from the control tower at Elmas airport near the Sardinian capital Cagliari.