Algerian military plane with more than 100 on board crashes, several dead - local media, witness

[webfact]

Algerian military plane with more than 100 on board crashes, several dead - local media, witness

 

ALGIERS (Reuters) - An Algerian military plane crashed on Wednesday near Boufarik airport near the capital Algiers, killing several people, local media and a witness said.

 

The plane was carrying more than 100 military personnel, a local TV station said.

 

(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi and Hamid Ould Ahmed; Writing by Ulf Laessing; editing by John Stonestreet)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-04-11

[ThreeEyedRaven]

Tragic, It is being reported that there are no survivors and the death toll could be 200.

http://gulfnews.com/news/mena/algeria/up-to-200-feared-dead-in-algeria-plane-crash-1.2203631

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43724941

RIP to them all and I hope the cause is found.

[webfact]

BREAKING

At least 100 killed in military plane crash in Algeria: local media

 

ALGIERS (Reuters) - At least 100 people were killed in a military plane crash in Algeria on Wednesday, local media said.

 

Local news website TSA said 105 people had died, quoting what it called provisional figures from the civil service.

 

A statement from the defence ministry confirming the crash gave no casualty toll.

 

(Reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed, Aidan Lewis and Ulf Laessing; editing by John Stonestreet)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-04-12

[snoop1130]

More than 250 killed in Algerian military plane crash - state TV

By Hamid Ould Ahmed

 

An Algerian military plane is seen after crashing near an airport outside the capital Algiers, Algeria April 11, 2018 REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina

 

ALGIERS (Reuters) - More than 250 people including members of Western Sahara’s Polisario independence movement were killed when a military plane crashed in a field outside Algeria’s capital on Wednesday, officials said.

 

Television footage showed crowds gathering around the smoking and flaming wreckage near Boufarik airport southwest of Algiers. A line of white body bags could be seen on the ground next to what media said was a Russian Ilyushin transport plane.

 

A total of 257 people died in the crash, state TV reported.

 

A member of Algeria’s ruling FLN party told the private Ennahar TV station the dead included 26 members of Polisario, an Algerian-backed group fighting for the independence of neighbouring Western Sahara – a territory also claimed by Morocco in a long-running dispute.

 

The plane was heading to Tindouf, an area on Algeria’s border with Western Sahara, but crashed on the airport’s perimeter, Algeria’s defence ministry said.

 

Tindouf is home to thousands of refugees from the Western Sahara standoff, many of them Polisario supporters.

 

U.N. attempts to broker a settlement have failed for years in the vast desert area, which has contested since 1975 when Spanish colonial powers left. Morocco claimed the territory while Polisario established its self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic there.

 

Algeria’s defence ministry issued a statement expressing condolences to families of the victims.

 

In February 2014, an Algerian Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules crashed in a mountainous area in eastern Algeria killing 77 passengers and leaving one survivor.

 

(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi, Hamid Ould Ahmed, Aidan Lewis and Ulf Laessing; Writing by Ulf Laessing and Aidan Lewis; Editing by John Stonestreet and Andrew Heavens)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-4-11