By IANS
Nairobi/Kinshasa : A cargo plane crashed into a residential area of the Congolese capital Kinshasa Thursday, plummeting into a crowded market and houses before catching fire and killing at least 30 people, officials said Friday.
The Antonov-26 plunged into the area near Ndjili International Airport on the outskirts of the city immediately after taking off Thursday morning.
All 22 on board the plane, 16 passengers and six crew members, were killed, as well as up to eight people on the ground, according to Jean-Pierre Eale, an aide to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s information minister.
However, a United Nations spokesman, Michel Bonnardeaux, told the BBC that the police informed him that there were 27 people on board, and that two had survived – an airhostess and a mechanic.
“What we don’t have is how many people were injured or dead on the ground. It’s an African city with a densely populated area there – almost a shantytown, if you wish – so we’re afraid the damage might be great,” he told BBC.
Russian news agency ITAR-Tass said the plane, flown by a Russian crew, was en route to Tshikapa in Kasai occidental province and belonged to the company Africa One.
Eyewitnesses said one of the plane’s propellers broke off during takeoff and one of its wings was sheared off as it hit a bank of trees before crashing into a market and houses.
“There are markets and nearby also houses, so there is a fear that casualty numbers may be a bit worrying,” said Wolde Gabriel Saugeron, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kinshasa.
“Unfortunately, they have so many old planes flying that almost every week we have a catastrophe in Congo,” said Saugeron.
Congo’s aviation industry has one of the worst records for crashes, but many people rely on the country’s often old and ill-maintained planes to get around the vast country the size of Western Europe which has only 500 km of paved road.
An Antonov crashed into a crowded Kinshasa market in 1996, killing more than 300 people, and in 2003 another plane of the same make crashed into a market in the town of Boende, 600 km from the capital.