KINSHASA: A military transport plane belonging to the Congolese army crashed near Kinshasa on Saturday, killing “several dozen” people, military and airport sources said.

The Antonov transport plane had just taken off and had “several dozen people” on board, an airport source said.

The plane went down in Nsele, about 100 kilometres to the east of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the source said. A local official in the area of the crash said there were “no survivors”.

The plane, which had a Russian crew, was carrying “two vehicles and weapons” and military personnel, a source at the army’s headquarters said.

He said there were “between 20 and 30 people” on board when it took off from Ndolo airport in Kinshasa.

A witness at the crash site said he had seen the plane “falling” out the sky shortly before 9am but said there was no sign of any smoke coming from the aircraft.

“I confirm that a military aircraft crashed this morning,” said Defence Minister Crispin Atama Tabe. “All 12 members of the crew died.”

According to an army officer who witnessed the incident, the cargo plane caught fire shortly after taking off from Kinshasa’s N’djili Airport and crashed in a nearby reserve controlled by the military’s elite Republican Guard units.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2017