The aircraft careered off the runway and into a busy market and residential area [AFP]

The passenger jet, carrying 85 people, ploughed into a crowded market and homes in the Birere neighbourhood on Tuesday, shortly after trying to take off from an airport in Goma in the east of the country.
 
Stavros Papaioannou, chairman of Hewa Bora Airlines, said that the crew heard an explosion at the rear of the DC-9 as it reached a speed of around 100 knots.

"It needed to reach 126 knots to take off," he said. "The pilot braked, but the runway was wet, the aircraft skidded and he lost control."
 
Dunia Sindani, a passenger on the jet and a former pilot, told a local UN radio station that the aircraft suffered a problem with one of its wheels,  possibly a flat tyre, and was unable to take off.

Julien Mpaluku, the regional governor, said that one of the pilots reported that an engine died as the jet taxied down the runway.
 
When the pilots tried to brake, a tyre failed as well, he said.
 
Wings ripped off

The aircraft appeared to have crashed through a fence separating the runway from a market district of wooden houses and cement shops.

"The toll from this accident is now 40 dead and 111 injured," Julien Paluku, the governor of Nord-Kivu, said after visiting hospitals and clinics where the injured were taken for treatment.
 
Congolese and Red Cross officials had initially reported at least 70 dead in the crash.
 
Paluku said that the 'black box' flight recorder had been recovered from the crash site.
 
Rescue workers have so far been unable to establish if any of the aeroplane's passengers were among the victims, or if all those killed were on the ground at the time of the crash.

"There were flames coming from the left wing. There was panic in the plane. I ran to the front. Crew members opened a door and I jumped. I fell onto the ground and saw the plane continue to move forward, then catch fire," Desire Buhendwa, a 36-year-old passenger, told the AFP news agency.

Airline blacklisted

Last week, the European Union added Hewa Bora to its blacklist of airlines banned from flying in the EU.

UN peacekeepers are involved in the rescue operation [AFP]

On Tuesday, Michele Cercone, an EU spokeswoman, said she had no information on Hewa Bora specifically but she said that all airlines based in DR Congo were banned from EU air space.

"That is because there is a general lack of effective control by the civil aviation authorities there to monitor and maintain minimum technical standards," she said.

There were eight plane crashes in DR Congo last year, according to the Geneva-based Aircraft Crashes Record Office.

Aircraft are used extensively for transport in the country, which has few paved roads.

Dozens of airline companies are in operation, using mainly old planes.

The International Air Transport Association has included DR Congo in a group of several African countries it classed as an "embarrassment" to the industry.

Recommend this article...

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto: