A plane carrying 17 passengers and crew that went missing in Democratic Republic of Congo has crashed into a mountain and all aboard are feared dead, the flight contractor said today.
Rescue helicopters spotted the wreckage early today of the 19-seat aircraft, contracted by Air Serv International, around 15km northwest of the town of Bukavu, on Congo's eastern border with Rwanda.
The plane had been on its way to Bukavu from the city of Kisangani yesterday when it lost contact with ground control as it made its landing approach in bad weather.
The difficult mountainous terrain and bad weather meant rescue teams could not reach the wrecked plane today. Efforts to reach the wreckage will resume on Wednesday.
The passenger manifest said the flight was carrying aid workers from the Dutch branch of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, Handicap International, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and and the UN Development Programme.
It showed six foreigners were aboard, from France, India, Canada, Congo Republic, South Africa and Britain, the last two of them pilots. The remaining 11 passengers were listed in the manifest as citizens of Democratic Republic of Congo.
Most humanitarian organisations operating in the country restrict travel by their personnel on commercial flights because of local airlines' abysmal safety record and frequent crashes.
Reuters