DRC plane crash claims 3, pilot

2006-09-07 07:44

Lubumbashi - Three foreigners and a Congolese pilot died on Wednesday after the private plane they were travelling in crashed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said airport officials.

One official said the passengers were two South Africans and an American.

Another official, Gustave Ngeleka, said: "According to our information, there were four people on board, three of them foreigners. There were no survivors."

Ngeleka said the plane, which belonged to the DRC airline ITAB, appeared to have hit an overhead power cable shortly after taking off from Fungurume, a mining area 200km northwest of Lubumbashi.

Plane crashes 'frequent in the DRC'

The plane had taken off at 17:00 in the direction of Lubumbashi, capital of the mineral-rich Katanga province in southeastern DRC.

ITAB, which was based in Lubumbashi and was often used by mining companies, was not immediately available for comment.

It was one of 50 other DRC airlines on a European Union blacklist of about 100 air companies banned from flying in EU airspace.

Plane crashes were frequent in the DRC, whose fleet was essentially composed of Soviet-made aircraft, which were not adequately maintained and sometimes operated without valid licences.

About 30 people had been killed since the start of 2006 in three air accidents involving private DRC airlines.

In 2005, the DRC authorities reported the deaths of 65 people in about 20 plane crashes.

- AFP