KHARTOUM: A Russian cargo plane crashed near the Khartoum airport yesterday shortly after takeoff from the Sudanese capital, a spokesman for the country’s civil aviation authority said.
All four crew members were killed in the crash, according to the spokesman, Abdel Hafez Abdel Rahim. The crew was believed to be Russian.
Abdel Rahim said the plane was destined for the south Sudanese capital of Juba and crashed “just minutes after takeoff” around 7 a.m. (0400 GMT), “about one kilometer or so from the airport.” Ambulance sirens were heard in Khartoum after the crash.
UN-operated Miraya Radio reported black smoke rising just south of the airport and said the Ilyushin 76 plane belonged to private Sudanese company Ababiel.
It was a second plane crash in Sudan in one week and the third in June.
Later yesterday, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir sacked the chief of the country’s Civil Aviation Authority, Gen. Abu Bakar Gaafar, and banned Russian-made cargo planes from operating in Sudan’s civil aviation, the state SUNA news agency said.
The move was Al-Bashir’s response to repeated accidents involving Russian-made cargo planes in Sudan. It made no mention of the use of the Russian-made planes by Sudan’s military.
Sudan’s Omdurman state radio said that the plane hit an electricity pole before crashing into an empty field. A residential area nearby was left without power shortly after the plane went up in flames. Abdel Rahim said the cause of the crash was not immediately clear.
Security guard Youssef Yacoub said he was near his building when the plane crashed and that he saw it was already on fire as it plunged down.
“There was smoke at its tail. It crashed and then blew up about 10 minutes later,” Yacoub said. He said he saw no bodies being pulled out of the wreckage. The fire was put out almost an hour later.
Sudan has a poor aviation safety record and has many small airlines that service Africa’s largest country. Three years ago, the government said it planned to build a new airport outside of the city center by 2010. It remains in the planning phase.
Also yesterday, Al-Bashir instructed that a committee be set up to probe the cause of recent plane incidents, SUNA said.
