From farm boy to leading name in television
Roberto Andrés Bruce Pruzzo went from Chilean farm boy to one of the
leading names in morning television news as a young adult. Born
Roberto Bruce, Photo credit: bcsociales.cl
on Jul. 30, 1979, in Talagante, 35 kilometers southeast of Santiago’s
city center, he began studying journalism in the late 1990s at the
Universidad Diego Portales in the capital’s university district of
Barrio Republica.
After the century changed over, Bruce graduated and began his
broadcasting career with Television Nacional de Chile, or TVN. From the
start of that career, he contributed his reporting talent to the morning
program “
Buenos Días a Todos,” serving as a field and
entertainment reporter. Anchor Felipe Camiroaga selected him to help
cover the important story of the reconstruction effort on the remote
Archipelago Juan Fernandez, clearly indicating his regard for Bruce, the
younger broadcaster.
Earlier this year, Bruce became one of the leading personalities in a
new program called “Dónde la viste” (“Where you see”), a comedy
entertainment show in which he co-starred with Natalia Valdebenito,
Sebastián Layseca and Natalie Nicloux. He was definitely a rising star
on TVN when he boarded the CASA C-212 plane to Juan Fernandez on Friday.
Up to now only four of the bodies have been recovered and returned to
their families, while the scattered human remains of others on the plane
are being collected
SANTIAGO
– The work of finding and identifying the remains of 17 of the 21
people killed when a Chilean military aircraft crashed continued Monday,
while the armed forces defend the pilot’s competence and press on with
the investigation into what caused the tragedy, though still without
results.
Up to now only four of the bodies have been recovered
and returned to their families, while the scattered human remains of
others on the plane are being collected.
In order to identify
them, the coroner’s office will take blood samples from family members
of the victims still missing from the crash of the air force CASA C-212
that went down at sea last Friday near Robinson Crusoe Island, some 670
kilometers (416 miles) from the mainland.
Coroner’s office
director Patricio Bustos said in Santiago that he will also ask the
families for photos, X-rays, medical records, dental plaque and any
other elements that might help them in their work.
On board the
aircraft were 21 people including journalists from Television Nacional,
notably popular show host Felipe Camiroaga, members of an organization
aiding reconstruction after the 2010 earthquake, members of the National
Council of Culture and the Arts and air force personnel.
Up to
now only fragments of the aircraft have been found, including a wheel
and a door, and efforts are being made to find the fuselage, since some
of the bodies might still be inside.
The government believes it likely that the airplane disintegrated on impact and that all the occupants were killed instantly.
“It’s
very probable we won’t have total success with this effort, but at
least we should do everything humanly possible to achieve that goal,”
President Sebastian Piñera said.
Joining the search for the
remains of the accident is the clairvoyant Carmen Diez, traveling in one
of the navy ships sent to the crash site.
Defense Minister
Andres Allamand, who is currently on the island, said that the
clairvoyant has given “coherent and plausible” information with regard
to the technical data available for finding the victims.
Southwest
of the island, where the CASA is believed to have gone down, the
underwater search goes on, and if any remains are found, divers and a
robot submarine will be called in to examine the depths of the ocean
thoroughly.
Also taking part in the task are five navy vessels,
boats equipped with sonar to sweep the coast and three military
helicopters overflying the coastline. Fishermen from the island are also
lending a hand.
Meanwhile the authorities have launched an investigation into the causes of the tragedy.
These
aircraft carry no black boxes, so the investigation will be based on
other elements, such as inspections of the parts of the crashed aircraft
that have been found up to now, the prosecutor in charge of
investigating aviation accidents, Sergio Sepulveda, told Radio
Cooperativa.
Air force secretary-general Maximiliano Larraechea,
for his part, defended the competence and experience of Lt. Carolina
Fernandez, the 26-year-old officer who was piloting the plane. She had
been in the service for
eight years and logged more than 1,000 hours of flight time.
Larraechea, however, did not totally rule out human error among the causes of the tragedy.
“We’re
talking about some mechanical failure, the effect of the wind, some
pilot error, or a mixture of all of the above. But at the time the plane
crashed, it had enough fuel,” Larraechea said.
The high-ranking
official considered it improbable that the accident was due to the high
winds or the lack of fuel, though he warned that there is little
likelihood of finding out what happened for sure.
The tragedy has moved the nation, which on Monday observed the first of the two days of mourning decreed by the government.
Citizens
have gone to show their grief at the Television Nacional studios, which
on Monday during its morning program “Buenos Dias a Todos” (Good Day to
Everyone), formerly hosted by Felipe Camiroaga, offered a heartfelt
tribute to the victims.
“This is immense sorrow. What these
people had in common was working disinterestedly for others, seeking the
best for everyone in institutions so important for our society,” former
President Michelle Bachelet, who governed Chile from 2006 to 2010, said
on Television Nacional.
And about Camiroaga, the current
executive director of the U.N. Women organizations said that he was “a
just, transparent, honest, approachable man, who always sought dialogue
to overcome differences, and was concerned about the causes of the
humblest people.”
Buried on Sunday was one of the crash victims,
journalist Roberto Bruce, while on Monday funerals were held in Santiago
for TVN journalist Silvia Slier and National Council of Culture and the
Arts official Galia Diaz, and in the northern city of Antofagasta the
last rites for Cpl. Erwin Nuñez.
The crash was also a hard blow
for the 630 inhabitants of Robinson Crusoe Island, the only inhabited
land in the archipelago, where the victims were headed to aid with
reconstruction work following the 2010 tsunami that swept this region.
