A Russian-built cargo plane has crashed on take-off near the international airport in South Sudan’s capital Juba, bbc.com reports. There was a Russian crew on board, a presidential representative said.
About 40 bodies were counted at the wreck site by a local reporter. Cargo planes to remote parts of South Sudan often carry passengers too. Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny told Reuters news agency that there were at least two survivors, a crew member and a child.
Juba’s Radio Miraya says the plane was heading to Paloch in Upper Nile State and crashed just 800m (half a mile) from the runway.
On October 31, a Russian Metrojet plane crash-landed shortly after take-off from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheik resort. The plane had been en route to St Petersburg when it crashed 23 minutes into its journey, scattering bodies and fragments of the planes over a wide area in the Sinai Province.
The plane was carrying 217 passengers, including 25 children, there were seven crew members on board. All 224 people on the Airbus 321 – most of them Russians – died.
Belsat.eu, via bbc.com
