DR Congo probes fatal air crash
An investigation is under way into the cause of an aeroplane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo which killed at least 21 people.
The passenger jet carrying 85 people ploughed into a crowded market and homes in the Birere neighbourhood shortly after trying to take off from an airport in Goma in the east of the country.
Stavros Papaioannou, chairman of Hewa Bora Airlines, said that the crew heard an explosion at the rear of the DC-9 as it reached a speed of around 100 knots.
"It needed to reach 126 knots to take off," he said. "The pilot braked, but the runway was wet, the aircraft skidded and he lost control."
Dunia Sindani, a former pilot and passenger on the jet, told a local UN radio station that the aircraft suffered a problem with one of its wheels, possibly a flat tyre, and was unable to take off.
Julien Mpaluku, the regional governor, said that one of the pilots reported that an engine died as the jet taxied down the runway. When the pilots tried to brake, a tyre failed as well, he said.
Wings ripped off
The aircraft appeared to have crashed through a fence separating the runway from a market district of wooden houses and cement shops.
The aircraft's wings were ripped off in Tuesday's crash and its undercarriage and tail wrecked, leaving only its nose visible in the debris amid the smell of smoke and fuel.
Rescue workers had recovered 21 bodies from the crash site, but they had so far been unable to establish if any of the plane's passengers were among the victims, or if all those killed were on the ground at the time of the crash.
"There are 21 confirmed dead, whose bodies have been recovered and taken to the morgue, but it's not possible at the moment to say if any of these are passengers," Papaioannou said.
"The crew are all fine. We are trying to contact all the passengers. So far, we have contacted 53 of them, who are all right."
Congolese and Red Cross officials had initially reported at least 70 dead in the crash.
"There were flames coming from the left wing. There was panic in the plane. I ran to the front. Crew members opened a door and I jumped. I fell onto the ground and saw the plane continue to move forward, then catch fire," Desire Buhendwa, a 36-year-old passenger, told the AFP news agency.
Airline blacklisted
Last week, the European Union added Hewa Bora to its blacklist of airlines banned from flying in the EU.
On Tuesday, Michele Cercone, an EU spokeswoman, said she had no information on Hewa Bora specifically but said that all airlines based in the Democratic Republic of Congo were banned from EU air space.
"That is because there is a general lack of effective control by the civil aviation authorities there to monitor and maintain minimum technical standards," she said.
David Learmount, an aviation expert, told Al Jazeera that the country's airline safety record was "appalling".
"It is really at the moment the worst country on the planet - by a very big margin - for aviation safety," he said.
He said that developing economies around the world generally had worse safety records while, "serious accidents that kill people have been virtually ruled out" in more developed economies.
There were eight plane crashes in DRC last year, according to the Geneva-based Aircraft Crashes Record Office.
Aircraft are used extensively for transport in the DRC, a huge country with few paved roads, with dozens of companies operating mainly old planes.
The International Air Transport Association has included the DRC in a group of several African countries it classed as an "embarrassment" to the industry.
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