An aid plane carrying 17 passengers and crew that was missing in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has crashed into a mountain, a United Nations official said today.
Rescuers spotted the wreckage of the 19-seat Beechcraft aircraft this morning, northwest of the town of Bukavu, on Congo's eastern border with Rwanda. The UN official said it is not known yet if there were any survivors.
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 last known radio contact was made 10 minutes inbound to Bukavu in heavy rain," the US-based organisation Air Serv International, which was contracting the plane, said in a statement. It did not say who was on board.
Air Serv is one of several entities and private contractors which service the large community of aid workers operating in Congo, a vast, mineral-rich former Belgian colony which is still suffering a humanitarian crisis triggered by a 1998-2003 war.
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. Despite the official end of the war five years ago, fighting between rebel and militia groups and the government army has persisted in the lawless eastern borderlands.
Experts say the 1998-2003 war and the resulting humanitarian catastrophe have killed 5.4 million people in Congo, mostly from hunger and disease linked to the conflict.