(Adds quotes, U.S. reaction, peso close, details) By Mica Rosenberg MEXICO CITY, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Investigators probing a plane crash that killed Mexico's interior minister have found no indication that it was caused by sabotage or foul play, the government said on Wednesday. Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino, President Felipe Calderon's right-hand man and the No. 2 figure in his government, died on Tuesday night when a small government plane crashed in Mexico City, killing all eight aboard and narrowly missing high-rise office buildings full of workers. Five people on the ground were also killed. As investigators combed the charred crash site, officials played back radar images of the plane's trajectory at a news conference and said they had not found signs of a mid-air explosion or that the pilot made emergency calls. "Can you hear me?" an air traffic controller asked the pilot as the plane went off the radar. Luis Tellez, the transport and communications minister, said investigators found the black box flight recorder but it could be weeks before the cause of the crash would be known. "So far, we have not detected any indications that suggest a hypothesis other than that it was an accident," he said, adding that the plane was under armed guard before it took off from central Mexico. Mourino, a U.S.-trained economist and a skilled former lawmaker, was named interior minister in January, taking charge of internal security a year into Calderon's bloody, army-led battle against powerful drug cartels. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Mourino "a valiant leader" in the joint war on drug crime. Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, a key Calderon adviser in the drugs war and former deputy attorney general, also died in the crash. Mexico has been tense since drug gangs appeared to take their feud with the government to a new level in September when a grenade was lobbed into a crowd celebrating a national holiday in Calderon's home city, killing eight people. More than 4,000 people have been killed this year, mainly traffickers in turf wars but also police and soldiers. The Learjet smashed into evening rush-hour traffic between office buildings in an upscale business district, setting a row of cars ablaze. Emergency teams at the scene said gas tanks used for cooking at nearby taco stands exploded after the crash. Tellez said Mexican investigators, along with experts from Britain and the United States, would carry out a "meticulous and detailed" probe into the crash, which left at least 13 other people injured, some with serious burns. He denied reports in Mexican media that the Learjet had been flying too close to a bigger plane. U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said two U.S. investigators had arrived to help. "This is a tragic loss for Mexico," he said. Mexico's peso weakened sharply in Asia on news of the crash but it then pared losses and stabilized at around 12.65 per dollar, 0.86 percent weaker on the day. (Writing by Catherine Bremer and Robin Emmott; additional reporting by Cyntia Barrera Diaz in Mexico City and Susan Cornwell in Washington)
Investigators inspect burnt cars at the scene of a plane crash in Mexico City November 5, 2008. Mexico's Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino, President Felipe Calderon's right-hand man and the No. ...
