http://www.msnbc.com/news/911372.asp?cp1=1
KINSHASA, Congo, May 9 — Scores of passengers aboard a Russian-built cargo plane flying across Congo were feared dead after they were sucked out of the aircraft when the rear door burst open in mid-flight, officials said Friday.
“THE DOORS opened, including the ramp, as the pressure system broke down. Everybody was sucked out and is presumed dead,” an official in the capital, Kinshasa, told Reuters.
Kikaya Bin Karubi, a Congolese government spokesman, said seven people had been confirmed dead after being “ejected from the plane” at an altitude of 33,000 feet near the southern city of Mbuji-Mayi. Officials were investigating the possibility of other casualties, he said.
Two officials at the international airport in Kinshasa told The Associated Press that 129 people were believed to have been sucked out of the plane. They spoke on condition of anonymity.
Their accounts could not be immediately confirmed, and there were conflicting reports about the total number of people on board.
Reuters reported, citing a Russian aviation official in Kinshasa, that a total of 129 people were on the airplane.
There were survivors, including Prudent Mukalayi, a soldier recovering at Kinshasa’s General Hospital, who said he lived because he was jammed against a packing case.
“I was asleep and then I heard people screaming. When I woke up the pilot told everyone to get to the front of the plane and there were about 40 of us, but people kept dying. ... There were only about 20 survivors.”
The plane, a privately-owned Ilyushin 76, apparently had been chartered by the Congolese army to transport Congolese police and their families from Kinshasa to the southeastern city of Lubumbashi.
FLYING TO LUBUMBASHI
After the accident occurred some 45 minutes into the flight, the pilots managed to turn back and land the plane in Kinshasa, Awan said.
Witnesses at the airport said the plane looked old and run-down. The back door had snapped away.
The government said the army would take journalists to Kinshasa airport to see the plane.
Officials said it was common for the army and the government to charter cargo planes to transport military personnel and civil servants, often with their families, between Kinshasa and Lubumbashi — Congo’s second-biggest city and home to a big military base.
Congo’s dilapidated road network means long-distance journeys have to be made by air, though many aircraft are old and poorly maintained.
The four-engine Ilyushin 76 is a versatile transport aircraft widely used in Africa, the Middle East, India and China.
It entered service in the 1970s as a heavy lifter with the Soviet armed forces and a freighter with the Soviet airline Aeroflot and proved an invaluable workhorse in both roles.
In the 1980s, the plane flew numerous air supply missions into Soviet bases at Kabul and Bagram during the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, hauling armor, troops and supplies. More recently it has seen action in Chechnya.
But concern about its safety has mounted in recent years because of the age of the aircraft and because they are often poorly maintained. Despite its age, the aircraft remains in service because of the shortage of cargo aircraft worldwide.
In February, an Ilyushin 76 crashed in the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing 276 elite Revolutionary Guards and crew — Iran’s worst air disaster and the second Ilyushin crash in a month.