Russian plane crashed in South Sudan. There are survivors

In South Sudan, an An-12 plane of Russian production with a Russian-Armenian crew crashed near the international airport of the capital of the republic. At the same time, data on the number of victims of the crash are very different, as well as information about accessories aircraft.

There were 18 people on board, including 12 passengers and six crew members - five Armenian citizens and one Russian, the agency reports. Sputnik with reference to the press secretary of the President Ateni Uek Ateni. According to him, three of those who were on board survived, these are local residents, and the plane itself belonged to the local airline Allied Services Limited. Armenia has officially confirmed the death of five of its citizens, and the Russian consul flies to South Sudan.

Previously, a spokesman for the Republic’s Ministry of Information, Paul Jacob Kumbo, said that the cargo An-12 was heading to the city of Paloch, there were 17 people on board, 15 of them died, two survived, including a child. Meanwhile edition Sudan tribune reported, citing government sources, that about 50 people could be on board this aircraft heading for the Paloche oil field, and most of the dead were allegedly oil workers.

Earlier, Reuters, citing eyewitnesses, reported that more than 40 bodies had been found at the site of the crash, and a police source told the 41 who had died. The plane fell on a small island on the White Nile River, where the fishing community lives, and local residents died there, whose aircraft collapsed on their houses, including seven children, TASS reports, citing local media. The UN mission in South Sudan, where there is a civil war, has confirmed the death of people on earth as a result of the plane crash and promises to provide assistance.

Agency RIA News" citing a source in the Russian power structures, reports that 39 people were killed, including six crew members - a navigator from Russia and five citizens of Armenia, as well as a 21 resident of the village, on which the plane fell.

Meanwhile, local radio station Eye Radio Juba reported in Twitter with reference to the country's Civil Aviation Authority that there were no passengers at all on board the crashed plane - not a single one. Previously the same radio Reported with reference to the director of Juba International Airport, that three of those on board were still alive.

Civil Aviation Administration in South Sudan calls Two alleged causes of the crash: overload of the aircraft and a technical error.

The plane crashed near the international airport of Juba, the capital of South Sudan, AP reports. The airport continued to operate after the incident, the agency notes. "An" crashed while taking off from Juba International Airport, crashing 800 meters from the airport, reports Interfax with reference to South Sudan radio. Reuters reports that the tail section and other aircraft fragments are scattered along the banks of the White Nile.

Russian consul flies to the crash site

The head of the consular department of the Russian embassy in Uganda is to fly 5 November to the crash site in South Sudan, since one of the dead crew members is likely to be Russian, announced at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.

“According to information from the Russian Embassy in Uganda, the crashed aircraft was registered in Tajikistan,” the information and press department of the foreign ministry told TASS. — The crew consisted of six people, including five citizens of Armenia. The navigator, with a high degree of probability, was a Russian.”

Note, at the moment Russia has no embassy in South Sudan, representative functions are carried out by the Russian diplomatic mission in Uganda.

An-12 owned by Tajik Airlines

As it turned out, the crashed An-12 belonged to the Tajik airline Asia Airways. “The plane belonged to us, it was registered in our name, but it was operated by an Armenian airline,” the agency was told FlashNord in the Dushanbe office of Asia Airways. They refused to comment further, saying only that an investigation is underway on the fact of the disaster.

Earlier, Russia hastened to disown the crashed An-12. Advisor to the Russian Minister of Transport Zhanna Terekhova said that the crashed plane belonged to a certain commercial African company, without specifying the name of the air carrier and the country in which it was registered, Interfax reports. Prior to this, Terekhova told RIA Novosti that “this aircraft is not listed in the Rosaviatsiya register, the crew is civilian.”

Earlier, an Interfax source said: “Preliminarily, not a single Russian airline operating cargo transportation in this region confirms the loss of its aircraft, nor that the crashed plane belonged to one of them.” At the same time, the source did not rule out that the crashed plane could have belonged to one of the Armenian airlines.

According to him, there were five Russian citizens on board, and a total of 41 people died in the crash, “this has been definitely established.” The Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Kenya is dealing with the issue of this crash, since Ukraine does not have its own representative office in South Sudan, they explained in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian airline Antonov previously reported that it was checking information about an An-12 cargo plane that crashed in South Sudan. “Our specialists are figuring out what the tail number is,” the company’s press service told RIA Novosti.

The United Nations mission in the African country said the crashed An-12 “was not a UN aircraft and was not used in the organization’s missions in South Sudan.”

Currently, the UN finds out the exact data on the dead and wounded during the plane crash and provides all necessary assistance, including by providing personnel for the search and rescue operation at the crash site at the request of Juba International Airport, added to the mission.

Previously "Forum" reported about the crash of flight A321 of Metrojet airlines, which operated the charter flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg early in the morning of October 31. On board the aircraft were 224 man, they all died.