Cyclic Hotline
9th May 2001, 18:54
Very sorry to read a story like this. Condolences to the family and colleagues.
Red Cross Plane Attacked Over Southern Sudan, Co-Pilot Killed
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A Red Cross plane flying over southern Sudan was fired on Wednesday, and a spokesman for the aid agency said the Danish co-pilot was killed.
The cockpit and right wing was damaged, killing the co-pilot, identified by the Red Cross as 26-year-old Ole Friis Eriksen of Glostrup, a Copenhagen suburb.
The Red Cross spokesman in Nairobi, Michael Kleiner, said the nine-seat King Air plane was struck twice. The pilot, who was not injured, managed to land the damaged plane in Lokichokio in northwestern Kenya, he said.
No one else was aboard the twin-engine, turboprop aircraft, which was clearly marked with Red Cross insignia. It had been on a scheduled weekly flight from Lokichokio, the base for most relief operations in southern Sudan, to Sudan's capital, Khartoum, and had received permission from the government of Sudan to make the flight.
Southern Sudanese rebels and government forces have been fighting a civil war in southern Sudan since 1983.
The plane was over government-held Sudan at the time of the explosion. The rebels have only a few anti-aircraft weapons and no aircraft.
"In that area we have no forces, but there are government forces in Torit, Kapoeta and Juba. In the countryside, there are government-supported militia and they must have done the shooting," said Samson Kwaje, a spokesman for the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. "The ICRC is a neutral humanitarian organization and we have been collaborating with them. We have not interfered with their flights."
Comment from the Sudanese government was not immediately available.
The copilot's death follows an attack in northeastern Congo on April 26, when six Red Cross workers were shot and hacked to death. The reason for that attack is still unknown.
Before the plane was hit, a technical problem caused a loss in cabin pressure, Kleiner said. As a result, halfway between Lokichokio and Juba, Sudan, it dropped to 6,500 feet for one minute and then went back up to 8,500 feet.
The plane's descent from its normal cruising altitude of 19,000 feet to 6,500 feet would have put it in range of anti-aircraft guns.
"When it came back to 8,500 feet there was an explosion heard by the pilot, and the co-pilot died instantly," Kleiner said.
"There were two impacts, one where the co-pilot was sitting and one under the right wing," he said.
The Red Cross provides medical care to war victims and regularly evacuates war wounded from southern Sudan to a 560-bed field hospital in Lokichokio.
Red Cross planes were bombed while on the ground in rebel-held southern Sudan three times in the last year, Kleiner said.
Kleiner said the copilot's body would be flown to Nairobi before being returned to Denmark. He said no decision had been made yet whether to suspend flights over Sudan.
(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Red Cross Plane Attacked Over Southern Sudan, Co-Pilot Killed
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A Red Cross plane flying over southern Sudan was fired on Wednesday, and a spokesman for the aid agency said the Danish co-pilot was killed.
The cockpit and right wing was damaged, killing the co-pilot, identified by the Red Cross as 26-year-old Ole Friis Eriksen of Glostrup, a Copenhagen suburb.
The Red Cross spokesman in Nairobi, Michael Kleiner, said the nine-seat King Air plane was struck twice. The pilot, who was not injured, managed to land the damaged plane in Lokichokio in northwestern Kenya, he said.
No one else was aboard the twin-engine, turboprop aircraft, which was clearly marked with Red Cross insignia. It had been on a scheduled weekly flight from Lokichokio, the base for most relief operations in southern Sudan, to Sudan's capital, Khartoum, and had received permission from the government of Sudan to make the flight.
Southern Sudanese rebels and government forces have been fighting a civil war in southern Sudan since 1983.
The plane was over government-held Sudan at the time of the explosion. The rebels have only a few anti-aircraft weapons and no aircraft.
"In that area we have no forces, but there are government forces in Torit, Kapoeta and Juba. In the countryside, there are government-supported militia and they must have done the shooting," said Samson Kwaje, a spokesman for the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. "The ICRC is a neutral humanitarian organization and we have been collaborating with them. We have not interfered with their flights."
Comment from the Sudanese government was not immediately available.
The copilot's death follows an attack in northeastern Congo on April 26, when six Red Cross workers were shot and hacked to death. The reason for that attack is still unknown.
Before the plane was hit, a technical problem caused a loss in cabin pressure, Kleiner said. As a result, halfway between Lokichokio and Juba, Sudan, it dropped to 6,500 feet for one minute and then went back up to 8,500 feet.
The plane's descent from its normal cruising altitude of 19,000 feet to 6,500 feet would have put it in range of anti-aircraft guns.
"When it came back to 8,500 feet there was an explosion heard by the pilot, and the co-pilot died instantly," Kleiner said.
"There were two impacts, one where the co-pilot was sitting and one under the right wing," he said.
The Red Cross provides medical care to war victims and regularly evacuates war wounded from southern Sudan to a 560-bed field hospital in Lokichokio.
Red Cross planes were bombed while on the ground in rebel-held southern Sudan three times in the last year, Kleiner said.
Kleiner said the copilot's body would be flown to Nairobi before being returned to Denmark. He said no decision had been made yet whether to suspend flights over Sudan.
(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)