A Boeing 737 belonging to Angola’s state TAAG airline crashed in the northern city of M’banza Congo on Thursday, killing at least six people and badly injuring others, Angola’s Angop news agency said.
The airplane was carrying 78 passengers and was en route from Luanda to M’Banza Congo, which is in northern Angola near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The agency said the plane lost control while making an emergency landing and crashed into a building, destroying it. It said a number of severely injured passengers were taken to hospital for treatment.
Among those killed in the accident was the municipal administrator of M’Banza Congo and a senior Roman Catholic priest from Italy.
It said the cause of the accident was under investigation.
The crash came on the same day that the European Union added TAAG Angolan Airlines to a list of international airlines barred from flying in its airspace due to safety reasons.
TAAG, Angola’s flag carrier, flies to a number of destinations in Angola as well as cities in Africa, Europe and South America.
Angola’s worst recent year for air accidents was 2000, when two separate crashes claimed 87 lives in the south-west African country in one month.
In the first crash, a Russian-built passenger plane crashed after exploding in the air in north-east Angola, killing all 48 people aboard. Unita rebels, who at the time were engaged in a bitter civil war with Angola’s Russian-backed government, claimed responsibility.
Two weeks later, a Russian-built Antonov airplane crashed near the capital, Luanda, killing all 39 people aboard. — Reuters