Military plane crashes in Algeria, killing more than 250
Local television showed thick, black smoke billowing from the crash site. Photo: Storyful: Algerie 24/7
As many as 257 people, including refugees, are believed dead after an Algerian military plane crashed soon after take-off into a field in the country’s north.
Algeria’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday those killed included 247 passengers and 10 crew. The cause of Algeria’s worst ever crash was unclear and an investigation has been opened.
Algerian authorities did not mention whether there were any survivors, but one witness reported seeing some people jump out of the aircraft before it crashed on Wednesday night (AEDT).
The flight had just taken off from the Boufarik military base, 30km south-west of the capital Algiers, for a military base in Bechar in south-west Algeria, according to Farouk Achour, the chief spokesman for the civil protection services.
It was scheduled to make a stopover in Tindouf in southern Algeria, home to many refugees from the neighbouring Western Sahara, a disputed territory annexed by Morocco.
The Soviet-designed Il-76 military transport plane crashed in a farm field with no people nearby, Achour said.
Local media reported the dead included 26 members of the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed group fighting for the independence of neighbouring Western Sahara, a territory also claimed by Morocco in a long-running dispute.
A source close to Polisario was quoted by broadcaster Ennahar as saying that the dead included four refugee children and that around a total of 30 refugees who had received medical treatment in the capital had been killed.
Algerian TV Dzair said five people were in a critical state but it’s unclear whether they were inside the plane when it crashed.
Footage from the scene showed thick black smoke coming off the field, ambulances and Red Crescent vehicles arriving at the crash site and body bags lined up in the field.
Several witnesses told Algerian TV network Ennahar they saw flames coming out of one of the planes’ engines just before it took off. One farmer said some passengers jumped out of the aircraft before the accident.
“The plane started to rise before falling,” an unidentified man lying on what seemed to be a hospital bed told Ennahar TV. “The plane crashed on its wing first and caught fire.”
The victims’ bodies have been transported to the Algerian army’s central hospital for identification.
The prime minister’s office said MPs and officials observed a minute of silence as a tribute to the victims.
The Il-76 model has been in production since 1970s and has an overall good safety record. It is widely used for both commercial freight and military transport. The Algerian military operates several of the planes.
It was the first crash of an Algerian military plane since February 2014, when a US-built C-130 Hercules turboprop slammed into a mountain in Algeria, killing at least 76 people and leaving just one survivor.
The previous deadliest crash on Algerian soil occurred in 2003, when 102 people were killed after a civilian airliner crashed at the end of the runway in Tamanrasset. There was a single survivor in that crash.
Also in 2003, 10 people died when an Algerian Air Force C-130 crashed after an engine caught fire shortly after it took off from the air base near Boufarik, according to the Aviation Safety Network.
-with AAP