DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Death toll from Congo plane crash raised to 38

Thirty-eight people were killed in the crash of a Russian-made cargo plane in Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa on Thursday (October 4), the government said on Friday (October 5) as it raised the provisional death toll. The Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs said the dead included 20 passengers and three crew who had been aboard the aircraft when it plunged onto houses in the Kingasani district shortly after taking off from nearby Ndjili international airport. According to the plane's manifest, the three crew were Ukrainian. Fifteen more people were killed on the ground, the ministry said in a statement which added 25 people were badly injured. It described the toll as provisional, saying a definitive casualty figure would be given later on Friday. Smouldering debris from the crash was widely scattered over streets and buildings, and some houses were completely flattened. Residents gathered around the plane's wheels in the wreckage. Authorities had opened an investigation into the causes of the crash of the Antonov 26 twin-propeller aircraft belonging to Congolese airline Africa One. The plane had been rented out to another company, Malila Airlift, and was heading to southern Kasai Occidental province. Africa One is on the European Union's airline blacklist. All airlines certified by Democratic Republic of Congo authorities -- except for Hewa Bora Airways -- are banned from the EU. Air travel is notoriously dangerous in Congo. In 1996, at least 350 people died when a Russian-built Antonov-32 cargo plane ploughed through a crowded market in central Kinshasa, in the former Belgian colony's worst air disaster. Ageing planes in Congo suffer from a lack of maintenance and spare parts but they are often the only way to transport people and goods across the vast central African country that is slowly recovering from a 1998-2003 civil war. Accurate records of passengers and crew are rare.

ITN Source | October 6, 2007

Tags:. .ageing. .least. .later. .crew. .capital