Indian among victims of aid flight crash

Kinshasa, Congo: A humanitarian aid flight carrying 17 people crashed while trying to land during a storm in remote eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and all aboard were feared dead yesterday.
The identities of the passengers have not been disclosed, but Kabemba said they included Canadian, French, and Indian nationals.
United Nations helicopters found the crash site - about 9 miles from the plane's destination near the Rwanda border - but rugged terrain and fog prevented peacekeepers from landing yesterday to learn the fate of those on board, officials said.
Air Serv International, the Warrenton, Va.-based aid group that runs the twice-weekly aid delivery between Kisangani and Bukavu, said helicopter surveys indicated no signs of life at the site.
"According to the information in our possession, there were no survivors," Amy Cathey, a manager for Air Serv in the regional capital,
Goma, told Congo's UN-funded radio station.
The 21-seat Beechcraft 1900 aircraft, owned and piloted by a South African company, went missing late Monday with two crew and 15 passengers, said a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It was located yesterday morning.
In New York, UN deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said the plane "apparently crashed into a mountain . . . northeast of Bukavu Airport while beginning its landing approach in bad weather."
She said the cause of the crash was under investigation. UN peacekeepers who surveyed the site by helicopter were unable to land "due to the difficult terrain," she said.
03/09/08 Eddy Isango/Associated Press/Boston Globe, United States

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Categories: Foreign Sep 2008, Safety Sep 2008