India, Aug. 2 -- A small tourist plane crashed on Saturday as it flew over the Nazca Lines archaeological site in southern Peru, killing 13 people, Peru's government said.

Peru's Ministry of Transport and Communications said in a statement that the plane was carrying 11 foreign tourists -German, Italian and Spanish visitors - and two crew members.

The Ministry said the plane crashed in the area of Socos, approximately 6 km (4 miles) from the city of Nazca and roughly 19 km (12 miles) from the Nazca Lines site.

The small plane, a Cessna Caravan C-208 aircraft, belonged to the local Peruvian airline Aerodiana and had taken off from the Pisco Airport at roughly 12:10pm local time.

At approximately 1:00 p.m. local time the crew reported a...