BuaNews (Tshwane)
Bathandwa Mbola
18 April 2008
Pretoria — South African has joined the international community in expressing condolences to the government and people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Equatorial Guinea, following two air disasters in their respective countries this week.
A DRC airliner crashed into a market district in the eastern city of Goma on Tuesday, killing more than 35 people while injuring about 80 passengers.
At the same time, at least four people were killed and seven went missing after a plane crashed on Wednesday into the Atlantic Ocean off the Equatorial Guinea island of Annobon, Annobon is a remote Atlantic island about 700km south-west of the tropical nation's capital, Malabo, and 350km off the coast of Gabon.
The toll from both the planes is estimated at 44 and scores of others wounded. "In this regard, South Africa extends its thoughts and prayers to the government and people of the DRC and Equatorial Guinea and in particular families of those who lost their most precious asset-life - in the two air disasters, while wishing those injured a speedy recovery," Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad said on Thursday.
The crash in DRC was the latest aviation disaster to hit the country, a vast central African state the size of Western Europe which is recovering from a war and has one of the world's worst air safety records. Reports indicate that the plane from DRC had failed to reach take-off speed because of water lying on the runway after a heavy downpour. When the pilot tried to abort the take-off, the plane skidded through a wall into the market area. There were eight plane crashes in DRC last year, according to the Geneva-based Aircraft Crashes Record Office (ACRO). Meanwhile indications from the Equatorial Guinea government were that the accident was "triggered by bad weather conditions" as the plane made its landing approach.
Equatorial Guinean airlines figure high on a European Union blacklist alongside companies from Sierra Leone, the DRC, Ukraine, North Korea and Liberia. The two air disasters, Mr Aziz told reporters: "have once more highlighted the need to address the fundamental causes of air disasters in our continent in an effort to make African skies safer for everyone of us.
"Accordingly we express the hope that the Civil Aviation Authorities in both the DRC and Equatorial Guinea will do everything in their power to investigate the causes of these recent air disasters and make recommendations that will assist Africa in its endeavour to make its skies safer."
According to the International Air Transport Association air accident rate in Africa is six times worse than in the rest of the world. Aviation safety experts single out the DRC, which is still struggling to recover from a 1998-2003 war, as one of the worst offenders.
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Many african countries are unfortunate because all theirs planes are listed for non flying black list,I wonder why they do that ,why for god sakes the countries can buy or have one and only one plane which is safer instead of buying expensive oldest planes in the desert for the same amount of money which can buy one new plane from the factory?when they will be responsible,why everything is that difficult to them, the problem is cupidity is high. the crashes will go on untill the find out how to throw away those stupids oldest plans which are killing thounds of people.