At least Fifty-three people were feared dead on Friday after a plane crashed as it tried to land in bad weather at Kisangani airport in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Congolese airline operating the flight said.
“The pilot tried to land but apparently they didn’t touch the runway,” Stavros Papaioannou, chief executive of Hewa Bora airline, told Reuters by telephone.
“Fifty-three dead, that is the last figure I have,” he said later, cautioning that the toll was likely to be revised. Separately, government spokesman Lambert Mende said he had been told that rescue services had pulled 40 survivors from the wreckage of the Boeing 727.