Helicopters swept over Congo’s vast jungles on Sunday in an increasingly vain search for scores of people presumed dead after falling from an airplane whose door burst open mid-flight, officials said.
Mamba Shako, Congo’s health minister, said at least 30 people are known to have safely returned with the Russian-built cargo aircraft — which swung back to Kinshasa’s airport late on Thursday after the rear cargo-bay door unlatched, spilling people into the sky over the central African nation.
”At that altitude, it’s not sure that we’ll find bodies, but the search continues,” Mamba said of the helicopter recovery mission, underway since Friday.
Shako said it may never be known how many were onboard the Ilyushin 76. It was carrying police, soldiers and their wives and children from Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, toward Lubumbashi, a city in the southeast.
The official manifest would have counted only some of the security officials and certain members of their families, he said.
Without a passenger tally, a final death toll may never be known — and official confusion continued on Sunday. Citing figures from Congo’s air force, a government representative, Kikaya Bin Karubi, confirmed 60 passengers missing from the plane and presumed dead.
However, Minister of Defense Irung Awan, who oversees the air force, said only 14 were so far known to be missing — seven police and seven civilians.
Survivors from the plane and two airport officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, earlier said that 100 or more fell from the aircraft.
The survivors said the airplane carried upward of 200 passengers.
Air travelers in Congo often fly in modified cargo planes that have few seats, leaving most passengers to cram in among their belongings in the rear of the aircraft.
The government of Ukraine, which confirms owning the plane and leasing it in Congo, said the plane returned to Kinshasa’s airport 40 seconds after takeoff, after the captain noted that the cabin was depressurising and requested a landing.
The Ilyushin 76 is a medium to long-range transport jet that was first flown in 1971. It is used as a civilian carrier around the world, particularly in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
The plane has a checkered safety record, including 47 accidents that resulted in 668 deaths, according to the Aviation Safety Network website, an air safety database. – Sapa-AP