KHARTOUM, 3 June 2005 — Five people were killed and 16 others injured yesterday when a Sudanese passenger plane crashed shortly after take-off from Khartoum and caught fire.
“One minute after take-off, the pilot, after detecting a technical failure, attempted to land when the aircraft was only two meters (seven feet) up,” Aviation Minister Ali Tamim Fertak said.
“But the plane crashed down and ran until the end of the runway when the left engine caught fire,” he said “Fire brigade trucks arrived at the scene in a record three minutes and extinguished the fire.”
The plane, a Russian-made Antonov, was carrying 34 passengers, all of them Sudanese nationals, aviation officials said.
Two of the six crew were Russians and the other four were Sudanese one of whom was slightly injured, Fertak added. Airport authorities had initially reported 29 injured.
The airliner belonged to the private Sudanese company Al-Majal Aviation and was chartered by the private firm Marsland Airlines.
It was due to fly from the capital to El-Obeid in central Sudan and on to El-Fasher in the troubled western region of Darfur.
“The aircraft crashed at the north end of the runway while taking off. There were 34 passengers on board and six crew,” Ahmed Mustafa Jaylani, head of internal flights in the Civil Aviation Authority, said.
“The plane was about to take off, but couldn’t and then I saw a fire break out on the left wing,” Mohamed Ibrahim Eissa, a 22-year-old passenger who escaped unharmed, said.
“I was thinking I must get out. People were shouting ‘We must get out, we must get out.’ I opened the emergency exit and climbed out. There were emergency services everywhere, and thank God they got us out. I saw many people injured,” he said. Rescue services took the injured to a nearby police hospital.
Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Abdel Hafiz Abdel Rahim said the pilot had applied the brakes after failing to take off. He said the left engine then caught fire.
“This was a complete accident, and the policemen and rescue services came quickly to save us,” said Abu Bakr Ibrahim Hassaballah, who was also on the aircraft when it crashed but escaped without injury.
