France will join an international investigation into the deadly incident of a French- registered DC-10 aircraft rented by the Cuban national air carrier, which crashed into a residential area when landing in Guatemala on December 21.

The French-Swiss private air company Air Outremer-Minerve (AOM) said that since the plane was registered in France, French investigators are obliged to join the investigation.

But it said it wouldl not pay any compensation to the victims in the incident, in which at least 26 people were killed and 72 injured.

Flying from Havana with 296 passengers and a 18-member crew on board, including many Guatemalan students returning home from Cuba for Christmas, the DC-10 deviated from the runway and crashed into several houses in a residential area near the international airport of Guatemala.

Among the dead were eight Guatemalans and one Cuban passenger and eight crew members, while the number of people who were killed in the residential area hit by the plane is still unknown.