2 soldiers die after crash of Sudanese plane into army tanks

November 8, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A cargo plane collided with three army tanks after crash-landing at Khartoum airport on Thursday and two soldiers died in the blaze.

The Antonov 12 cargo plane belonging to the privately owned Juba Air Cargo company took off on an internal flight but had to return to Khartoum due to technical problems, officials said.

Two soldiers were killed and a third seriously wounded when the plane veered off the runway into the nearby military airport, a Sudanese army spokesman said.

“The plane crashed into three tanks which all burnt with it.”

Planes often crash at Sudan’s crowded airports. Without roads in much of the country, cargo travels mostly by air.

“The plane landed outside the civilian airport close to the military airport,” a Sudanese civil aviation official told Reuters. “It is burnt but all the crew are well.”

Many of the planes in Sudan are old and maintenance is sometimes poor.

A huge humanitarian effort and United Nations and African Union peacekeeping operations in Sudan mean traffic at airports has greatly increased in recent years.

(Reuters)