At least 36 people were killed on Wednesday when a Soviet-era Antonov plane crashed just after take-off from South Sudan's capital Juba. Police and rescue workers recovered the bodies of men, women and children among the wreckage of the An-12 cargo plane, which crashed into a farming community on an island in the White Nile river, seconds after departure.
"So far 36 bodies have been collected and brought to hospitals," South Sudan Red Cross official Majju Hillary told AFP, adding that all the victims were on board the ill-fated aircraft. Two survivors were pulled out of the twisted metal hulk of the plane but one later died, leaving a young boy the only survivor, the Red Cross said, adding the number of dead could still rise. "We can't assess this is the final toll, as some debris is too heavy to be lifted and needs some heavy machinery," Hillary added. The five-member Armenian crew were all killed, the Armenian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine-based Antonov said in a statement that the "An-12B was is no state to fly because it failed to undergo timely technical servicing ... that should have included work on extending its resources and exploitation timeframe." Farmer Ibrahim Mohamed said the plane went down near his home, scattering debris around his hut. "The sound was so loud... the plane started descending and landed near my door," Mohamed told AFP.
"One of the tyres broke off and ran into the house - but thank God it did not injure anyone," the father of four said. Cargo planes serving remote parts of South Sudan often carry passengers as well as goods, and are commonly overloaded. The main fuselage of the plane ploughed into thick woodland but the debris was scattered over a wide area around the riverbank, according to an AFP reporter at the site. Radio Miraya, a United Nations-backed station, said the plane had been heading to the northern Upper Nile state, crashing some "just 800 metres from Juba International Airport runway."
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