Angolan army says 17 dead in plane crash

LUANDA – Angola’s military said 17 people died in the crash of an air force plane in the central city of Huambo, the official Jornal de Angola newspaper reported yesterday.

A military official told AFP late on Wednesday that 30 people had died, but the state daily cited a statement from the armed forces that said 17 were dead, including two civilian women and two children.The Brazilian-built Embraer-120 turboprop was carrying 23 people when it crashed around 11h30 on Wednesday, carrying two military delegations and six civilians, the paper said.Two lieutenant generals, Bernardo Leitao Francisco Diogo and Elias Malungo Bravo da Costa Pedro, as well as Brigadier General Demostenes Katata were identified among the dead.The pilots and crew in the front of the plane survived the crashed, the paper said, while most of the passengers died.The air force has launched an investigation into the cause of the crash. Provincial aviation officials told the paper that ‘technical problems’ could have caused the fire that caused the crash.The plane crashed just after take-off in Huambo’s Cachingue neighbourhood, where one witness told the paper that he saw the plane flying low and engulfed in flames before it slammed into the ground.A photograph issued by state news agency Angop showed the plane broken in two pieces upon impact.’It is too early to verify the causes of the accident. A commission of inquiry will be set up,’ Ernesto Dos Santos, who is in charge of transport for the Angolan Air Force, told AFP, adding the investigation could take ‘one or two months’.- Nampa-AFP

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