Death Toll in DR Congo Plane Crash Rises to 23 victims

The death toll of the plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo rose to 23 victims.

Rescue workers at Goma city in DR Congo said that the plane crashed to the ground shortly after takeoff and sent plumes of black smoke billowing into the air.

The rescue service coordinator for the operation, Joseph Makundi, said, “We are up to 23 bodies now”.

Goma airport official Richard Mangolopa said that no survivors were expected from the disaster.

Busy Bee airline staff member Heritier Said Mamadou pointed out there were 17 passengers on board and two crew members. It took off around 9-9.10 am (0700 GMT).

The Dornier-228 aircraft had been headed for Beni, 350 kilometers north of Goma when it went down. It crashed into a residential area near Goma airport.

It is noteworthy that at least 500 people killed in passenger airline crashes in 2018, according to Dutch aviation consulting firm and the Aviation Safety Network, but both groups emphasized that fatal crashes remain rare.

There were 13 deaths in 2017 in two fatal crashes worldwide, but both were on regional turboprop aircraft.

The firm estimated that the fatal accident rate for large commercial passenger flights in 2018 at 0.36 per million flights, or one fatal accident for every 3m flights.

That is up from 2017’s 0.06 per million flight rate and above the most recent five-year average of 0.24 per million flights.

Over the last two decades, aviation deaths around the world have been falling. As recently as 2005, there were 1,015 deaths aboard commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network said.