At least 257 people died when an Algerian military transport plane filled with soldiers and civilians crashed near the capital Wednesday, Algeria’s Defense Ministry said, in the deadliest of numerous air accidents involving aircraft from the country in recent years.
The Russian-built Ilyushin Il-76 transporter slammed into a field shortly after takeoff from a military base in Boufarik, about 15 miles southwest of Algiers. The victims included 26 members of Western Sahara’s Polisario independence movement, an official in Algeria’s governing FLN party said.
Scores of ambulances and emergency workers rushed to the crash site, and video footage showed clouds of smoke billowing from an area near the runway. Strong winds fanned a fire that engulfed the wreckage, a security official, Lieutenant Adel Zghaimi, told state media.
Several witnesses told the private network Ennahar TV that they had seen flames coming from one engine as the plane was taking off. It lurched in the sky and crashed on one wing, one witness said.
A Defense Ministry official, speaking by telephone, said at least two people had survived and were being treated in the hospital. The cause of the crash was unclear and is under investigation, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The plane was headed to Bechar, but was scheduled to stop in Tindouf, on Algeria’s border with the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Algeria is a longtime backer of Polisario, the group that has been fighting since 1973 for independence for Western Sahara, which is controlled by Morocco.
Until Wednesday, the country’s deadliest accident was in July 2014, when an Air Algérie jetliner traveling from Burkina Faso to Algeria crashed in the desert in Mali, killing all 116 people on board.
In February of that year, a US-built C-130 Hercules transport plane of the Algerian military, carrying 78 personnel and their families crashed in the northeastern province of Oum El Bouaghi during bad weather. One person survived.
Six people died when an Algerian Air Force C-130 crashed into a hillside in France in November 2012.
