Crash indicates 'air impact'
2005-01-31 15:03
London - The downing of a British military transport plane north of Baghdad left 10 military personnel missing and presumed dead, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said on Monday.
If the deaths are confirmed, it would be the biggest single loss of British lives since the start of the Iraq war. The previous highest number was eight.
The British government said it is investigating the cause of the Hercules crash on Sunday, and couldn't comment on an Iraqi militant group's claim that it shot down the aircraft. The Ansar al-Islam group said in a statement posted on Sunday on an Islamic website that its fighters tracked the aircraft, "which was flying at a low altitude, and fired an anti-tank missile at it".
Captain David Orwin, a British military official in Basra, said that the crash site had been secured by US and British forces.
A senior US military officer in Iraq said the Royal Air Force Hercules C-130 aircraft, en route from Baghdad to the city of Balad, crashed 40km north-west of Baghdad, adding that the plane's wreckage was scattered over a large area. The ministry of defence in London said the crash occurred 30km north-west of the Iraqi capital at 5:25pm local time (14:25GMT).
The US military has an air base at Balad. Ansar al-Islam and other insurgent groups are known to operate in the area, and insurgents have fired at aircraft before. Several thousand surface-to-air missiles disappeared from Iraqi military arsenals after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime and many of them are believed to have fallen into the hands of insurgents.
Britain, America's top ally in the coalition, has 9 000 troops in Iraq, mostly in the south of the country near the city of Basra. British officials haven't said why the Hercules was flying north of Baghdad.
"It is the largest single loss of British service lives since the military action began almost two years ago," Straw said of the plane crash. "Our hearts go out to the families and comrades of those who were killed and those injured," he told BBC radio.
One of the dead was a serviceman with joint British-Australian citizenship, Flight Lieutenant Paul Pardoel, the Australian government said.
The British military has reported 76 deaths since the start of the Iraq war. Eight British troops died along with four American crew when a US helicopter crashed over Kuwait on March 21, 2003.
Britain's Royal Air Force flies several versions of the American-built C-130 Hercules aircraft, which is used to carry troops, passengers and freight.
Military expert Air Vice-Marshall Tony Mason said the fact the wreckage was widely scattered indicated the Hercules may have been shot down.
"The first statement said the crash site covered a wide area, which suggests impact in the air rather than the ground," Mason told BBC radio. "My concern is that at the moment it could very well be hostile action."
- AP