Cargo Plane Crashes in Congo Killing 25

Filed in archive Aviation Travel on October 4, 2007

A small cargo plane crashed into a Congo neighborhood on Thursday. Officials are saying 25 people were killed and 22 people injured, although both numbers could increase. Amazingly, two people survived. According to the aviation safety network, the Congo - a small country in Africa - has experience more fatal air crashes than any other African country.

It was not immediately known what caused the Antonov 26 to go down. But the Russian Foreign Ministry said one of the plane's propellers somehow broke off during takeoff, and one of its wings was sheared off as it hit a bank of trees.

That account was echoed by several witnesses at the scene, who said the aircraft appeared to be missing a propeller before it crashed.

"The plane clipped several treetops and hit the roofs of three houses, crashing onto its back with its tires in the air," said Japhet Kiwa, who lives in the neighborhood of Kingasani, a few miles away from Kinshasa's Ndili International Airport. "There was a huge explosion."

The blast set palm trees ablaze and completely tore apart three single-story homes set between two dirt roads. Little was left, except two detached wheels on the roof of a house, strips of the plane's riveted exterior and what appeared to be part of an engine. A large bent propeller stuck out of the earth, surrounded by gray concrete blocks, trash, torn clothes and debris.

Smoke filled the sky for hours as firefighters struggled to douse the flames amid a chaotic crowd of shouting onlookers, including wailing friends and relatives of the victims.

Red Cross workers scampered among the debris, hauling charred corpses out of the rubble in blue plastic sacks, which were loaded into ambulances and taken to a hospital in Kinshasa.