Hunt as E Guinea plane disappears
A plane carrying 45 people has disappeared shortly after taking off in Equatorial Guinea.
The Russian-built Antonov aircraft was on an internal flight from the capital, Malabo, to the mainland city of Baka.
Military aircraft were searching for the plane. The country’s information minister told Reuters there were “rumours” it had crashed into the sea.
The plane was known to be carrying about 35 passengers and some 10 crew, although exact numbers were not known.
By: Flex 35 - 17th July 2005 at 17:59
Doesn’t suprise me one little bit. Flying internally within Africa (except with airlines based in South Africa, Kenya Airways and North Africa) is extremely dodgy. Antonov’s etc. go down in Africa at least 6-7 times a year.
Flex 35
By: kkbelos - 17th July 2005 at 13:38
An Exxon´s helicopter found the crashed plane, sadly nobody survived. RIP.
The number of people onboard is unclear. The goverment states that the plane was able to carry 44 passengers and 6 crew but other sources talk about 79 passengers onboard. It´s difficult to get the real number because it´s common to pay for the trip but without any kind of ticket.
Opponets to Ecuatorial Guinea´s dictator Teodoro Obiang claim that the airline involved, Air Equateur , is owned by Obiang´s daughter Anita Mbasogo and his husband and so they had freedom to overload their planes.
Anyway, a spanish woman working at bata told to news agency EFE that she had flew with Air Equateur and never saw more passengers than seats. But, I guess they still could have olverloaded the plane by installing more seats than the allowed number by the manufacturer and civil aviation authorities.
By: steve rowell - 17th July 2005 at 06:27
It looks like 55 souls have been lost in this tragedy, God bless them
Sign In
July 16, 2005 at 9:08 pm