An airplane carrying humanitarian workers crashed on approach to Bukavu, the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province, on 1 September.

“We don’t yet have the official [passenger] list so we don’t know the nationality of the passengers or their organisations,” said Christophe Illemasene, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Illemasene said there had been 17 people, including two crew members, on board the aircraft, a Beechcraft 1900. He added that the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) had dispatched a helicopter to the scene early on the morning of 2 September with a search and rescue team.

“The helicopter landed far away [from the wreckage] and the search and rescue team headed to the site on foot,” he added.
The plane had flown from Kinshasa bound for Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, with stopovers scheduled in the provincial capitals of Mbandaka, Kisangani and Bukavu.

Amy Cathey of Air Serv International, the flight operator, said the accident happened on the approach to Bukavu amid bad weather.

Aviation accidents occur very frequently in DRC. For many people travelling long distances, planes are the only viable option because of the dire state of the country’s roads.

IRIN 

There are conflicting reports on how many people were on board and how many died in the Bahr Gazal crash, but at least twenty people were on board. Some sources suggest nineteen fatalities and two survivors, and others say there were 26 deaths and no survivors; it should be noted that if either of these were correct then there were more than twenty on board. Lieutenant General Dominic Dim Deng, the area's defence minister, is confirmed to be dead.

"The plane had been rented from a charter company and was carrying a delegation of leaders from the (former rebel) Sudan People's Liberation Movement from Wau to the capital Juba," said Luka Mariak, spokesman for the Souther Sudan president Salva Kiir. This makes the journey around 450 kilometres (290 miles), with the plane crashing in a flat region 375 kilometres (around 220 miles) from Juba. It is reported it subsequently caught fire.

The United Nationssaid that the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) had dispatched a helicopter to assist the emergency response effort.

Justin Yak and his wife are also confirmed to be dead. Yak was the minister for cabinet affairs until a 2007 reshuffle left him removed from office. Bodies were flown into Juba Airport were relatives waited for hours for news. UNMIS is expected to fly the bodies on to their nearby airfield, to which there is no public access.

The disaster is thought to be an accident caused by mechanical trouble. The pilot had contacted Air Traffic Control (ATC) to report engine problems and requested permission to conduct an emergency landing at nearby Rumbek. ATC lost contact minutes later.

In Goma, on the eastern side of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), at least 70 people, according to officials, have died because of a plane crash yesterday.

VOA has reported that as many as 100 people could have been on board the plane at the time of its crash.

A director of Hewa Bora Airways, the airline involved in the incident said that "we [the airline] have managed to save most of the passengers who have been evacuated to hospitals."

Naomi Schwarz, a journalist on the scene described the incident. "The whole top of the plane is ripped off and the two buildings next door are pretty much destroyed too. People are carrying buckets full of water to try to put out the fire. Just buckets they found on the streets," she said.

As of 08:00 UTC, the majority of the Hewa Bora website was not available.

An Antonov cargo plane has crashed in Congo, killing thirteen people on board.

The plane had just taken off from Kongolo, Katanga with a cargo of tin ore when the aircraft developed engine problems, causing the Russian pilot to attempt to return for an emergency landing. However, the plane instead crashed short of the runway, busting into flames.

Although thirteen have been confirmed dead, the bodies two of whom have not been recovered, two people were rescued from the aircraft before it caught fire. The pair, one a young child and the other a man in his twenties, are being treated in a local hospital.

The plane had been destined for Goma, Kivu Province's capital city, carrying a cargo of around nin tonnes of cassiterite (tin oxide) and other minerals. Goma is one of Congo's main mineral transportation centres.

Air travel has a poor safety record in Africa. According to the Aviation Safety Network, last year Africa accounted for just 3% of all airliner flights, but also accounted for 18.5% of all fatal accidents in the commercial aviation sector. Mining flights in particular have caused safety concersn, with officials banning flights into Goma from Walikale, also in Kivu, in June. Prior to the ban, aircraft had been using a stretch of road as a temporary runway while a purpose-built one was being constructed.

Air Senegal International hereby expresses its sincere apologies to its clients and partners for the inconvenience caused by the cancellations and delays of their flights from July 6 – 9, 2007.

The unexpected situation arose due to a 48-hour ongoing technical maintenance netted on our Boeing 737 700.

For security reasons, Air Senegal International deemed it necessary to cancel or delay all its flights and took charge of all financial expenditures.

Air Senegal International wishes to reassure its clients and partners, as well as inform them that their normal routine flights resumed on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 on all domestic, regional and international networks.

Air Senegal International aims to provide safe and affordable flights to its client.