Seems like a bad week for commercial aviation...



http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/11/01/angola.crash.02/index.html



November 1, 2000
Web posted at: 6:48 a.m. EST (1148 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

LUANDA, Angola -- A Russian-built passenger plane exploded and crashed shortly after takeoff Tuesday night in northern Angola, killing all 48 aboard, CNN confirmed on Wednesday.

The chartered Antonov 26 burst into flames just minutes after taking off from Saurimo, located about 700 kilometers (450 miles) east of Luanda. The plane, which went down about 48 kilometers (30 miles) from Saurimo, was bound for Luanda, Angola's capital.

According to Portugal's Lusa news agency, the plane carried 42 passengers and a crew of six. The Russian emergency ministry says the crew was Ukrainian. An official with the plane's operating company, Arcango, said no one survived the crash.

According to Lusa, the official said the plane "exploded in the air" after takeoff.

Authorities have not released the names of the dead, and a team of investigators was en route Wednesday to examine the crash site.

The crash occurred in a region that has been enmeshed in a decades-old civil war. The UNITA rebel group, which is fighting the civil war with Angola's government, has in the past shot down civilian planes. Also, several crashes in recent years have been blamed on poor aircraft maintenance at Luanda Airport. But, the cause of the crash is unknown.

The government and UNITA, a Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, first began fighting after the southwest African country's 1975 independence from Portugal.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.