DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: At least 23 killed as plane crashes in Kinshasa
- 00:00:25
- ITN Source
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: At least 23 killed as plane crashes in Kinshasa
The ageing Antonov 26 twin-propeller aircraft belonging to Congolese airline Africa One plunged onto houses in the Kingasani district of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on Thursday (October 4) shortly after taking off from nearby Ndjili international airport on an internal flight. Transport Minister Remy Henri Kuseyo told Reuters that the five crew and thirteen passengers on the plane had all been killed. The plane's manifest said the aircraft was carrying 14 Congolese passengers and three Ukrainian crew, an airport official said. The plane was en route to the southern city of Tshikapa, in Kasai-Occidental province. Kuseyo said at least two women and a man were killed on the ground when the plane ploughed into the crowded area and burst into flames. A Reuters witness also saw one man discover the bodies of two of his children, a boy and girl, crushed by a wall, as distraught relatives poured over the blackened rubble. With bodies still being recovered and the seriously injured being taken to hospitals across the sprawling riverside capital, the death toll appeared likely to rise. Information Minister Toussaint Tshilombo said he had seen four residents being treated for third degree burns in the city's General Hospital. Another two infants were in intensive care, he said. Smouldering debris from the crash was widely scattered over streets and buildings, and some houses were completely flattened. The stench of burning debris and jet fuel filled the air. Rescue workers pulled at least six charred corpses from the wreckage of the plane as they joined family members picking through the devastation. An airport security official who arrived quickly at the crash site said fire fighters had initially struggled to reach the wreckage in the shanty town. 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. According to the Aviation Safety Network, at least 30 people have already been killed so far this year in six plane crashes in the country the size of West Europe with only a few hundred kilometres (miles) of paved roads. Congo has one of Africa's worst air safety records and was dubbed an "embarrassment" by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) last year. 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.
ITN Source | October 5, 2007
