Atleast 41 die on board and on ground
Juba: Several people were killed on Wednesday when a plane crash-landed shortly after taking off from South Sudan’s capital Juba.
The plane crashed onto a small island in the White Nile river, close to Juba airport.
“Cargo plane heading to Paloch in Upper Nile State crashed just 800 metres from Juba International Airport runway,” reported Radio Miraya, a UN-backed station. The radio said up to 40 people may have been killed, adding that airport officials had told them only three passengers had survived.
An AFP reporter at the scene said he could see people trying to search for survivors and carry “several” bodies out of the wreckage. The main fuselage of the plane had ploughed into thick woodland, with debris scattered around the riverbank in a wide area.
Juba’s airport is the busiest in the war-torn country, which is the size of Spain and Portugal combined but with few tarred roads. The airport hosts regular commercial flights, as well as a constant string of military aircraft and cargo planes delivering aid to remote regions cut off by road.
Civil war broke out in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that has split the poverty-stricken, landlocked country along ethnic lines. Fighting continues despite an August peace deal, but battles today are far from the capital.
A crew member and a child on board survived, presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny told Reuters. Shortly after taking off from Juba airport the plane came down on the banks of the White Nile River, leaving a tail fin and lumps of fuselage strewn in vegetation close to the water.
The plane may have had about 20 people on board, including crew and “probably” 10 to 15 passengers, Ateny said, but added: “We need to confirm how many people were on board.”
In addition, he said an unknown number of people were killed on the ground as the Antonov plane crashed near where some fishermen were working. “We don’t know the number of people that were killed on the ground,” he added.
A police officer, who did not give his name because he was not authorised to speak to the media, told Reuters at the scene that at least 41 people died, but said the number could climb. The Reuters witness said he saw 41 bodies at the site.
Earlier, South Sudanese media had said the cargo plane carried five Russian crew and seven passengers. South Sudan Tribune on Twitter also reported two survivors, one of them a child. (AFP)