Drama in Algeria: 257 deaths in the crash landing of a plane close to the air base of Boufarik

A plane of the Algerian army was crushed Wednesday shortly after its takeoff of the air base of Boufarik, to about thirty km in the south of Algiers, making 257 died, mainly of the soldiers.

The victims are mainly soldiers and members of their families, announced the Algerian ministry of Defense in an official statement. The victims are the ten team members and 247 passengers, “whose majority are staffs of the National popular army as well as members of their families”, specifies the ministry, without mentioning possible survivors.

The flames which devastated the near total of the plane are from now on extinct. The wreck calcined and blackened device to lie it in an uninhabited zone, a field located at a hundred meters of the enclosing walls of air base.

The Algerian vice–minister of defense, also chief of staff of the national popular army, the general Ahmed Gaïd Salah, went on the spot of the accident and ordered immediate installation the “of a committee of inquiry in order to determine the circumstances of the accident”.

The device is Iliouchine IL–76, a civil or military four–jet aircraft of Soviet manufacturing then Russian. According to the website of the manufacturer, the IL–76 can transport between 126 and 225 passengers, according to the versions.
The device ensured a flight Boufarik–Tindouf–Béchar. Tindouf, to 1,800 km of Algiers, close to the borders of Morocco and the Western Sahara, shelters many refugee camps sahraouis, as well as the seat of administration of the Arab Republic sahraouie democratic (RASD), proclaimed in 1976 by the freedom fighters of Front Polisario. Béchar, to approximately 1,000 km in the south–west of Algiers, shelters an important military base, close to the border, closed, between Algeria and Morocco, the two enemy brothers of the Maghreb.

Algerian televisions diffuse images of the device in flames. On these images, a black smoke rises with the accesses of a motorway and a bunch of idlers and security managers being held in pre with the neighbourhoods of the site of the crash landing.

The president of the Republic, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, issued Wednesday, three days a national mourning, following the crash landing of a plane of the air forces of the National popular army with Boufarik (Blida), announces the presidency of the Republic in an official statement taken again by the STEP.

“Following the crash landing of Iliouchine of the air forces today with
Boufarik which claims 257 lives, the President of the Republic, Abdelaziz
Bouteflika, issued 3 days a national mourning as from this day “, the same source specifies.

“The president of the Republic also ordered the organization, Friday, April 13, 2018, of the prayer of absent in memory of victims”, the official statement adds.

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Gabriel MIHAI

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