Plane down in DR Congo

[cldrvr]

RTRS reporting, no further details yet.

Edit: Fokker 50 going by updated reports.

Edit: Plane came down in urban area in/around Goma, casualties reported on the ground.

[Dave's brother]

This from an African aviation website, reporting Congo radio.

• The African Aviation Tribune •: ► CONGO (KINSHASA): CAA Fokker 50 crashes on landing in Goma; many casualties.

"Fokker 50 belonging to CAA - Compagnie Africaine d'Aviation (FPY) crashed into a residential area at 17h55L this afternoon while landing in bad weather at Goma International Airport...
"The aircraft was arriving from Lodja, Kasai-Oriental Province with 30 people aboard. Preliminary reports state that the aircraft was completely destroyed with 5 bodies having been retrieved from the wreckage. Three survivors have been taken to local hospitals."

[Piltdown Man]

No, surely not! Yet another crash? Must have the wrong place.

[Blind Squirrel]

First accident pictures

Mutaani FM (eastern Congolese radio station) reports a death toll of between 30 and 50: difficult to tell, it says, because nobody has been able to lay his hands on the passenger manifest. Julien Pakalu, governor of the province, says that thus far no deaths have been reported on the ground, although the aircraft went down in heavy rain in a residential district in the centre of town as dusk was falling. At least one house has been completely destroyed. The accident occurred seven kilometres short of RWY 36 (1,955m; 5,000' AMSL) at Goma.




(


accident-avion-goma-bukavuonline-2 - Bukavu Online

[Blind Squirrel]

Death toll now revised downward to six; three survivors (presumably somebody found the passenger manifest). Names given at the link below. Accident aircraft identified by Digital Congo -- which for some reason illustrates its story with a picture of a completely different crash -- as 9Q-CBD. If correct, this would be Fokker F50 s/n 20270, built 1992, formerly operated by Air UK and KLM.

It looks even worse in daylight. It's remarkable that anyone survived.




Digitalcongo.net 4.0

[barit1]

10 km short of rw36? That places it in the drink - Lake Kivu.

[Blind Squirrel]

No, you're quite correct -- another thing that the good Governor seems to have got wrong. Other reports say that the crash site was near the Electoral Commission offices close to the Grande Barriere border-point. That would put it just past the lakeshore, more or less on the extended centreline of RWY 36 and about 2 km short of the threshold.

[Ennie]

Former G UKTE and PH LXJ.

I flew my first sector as a commercial pilot with Air uk, Norwich to Amsterdam in this aircraft in 2002.

Very sad.

[Hotel Tango]

That got me looking Ennie and I found that I paxed on it (as PH-LXJ) in October 2009 DUS-AMS.