Search teams combed the wreckage of an Algerian military plane yesterday for clues to why it crashed in a mountainous region killing all but one of 78 people on board.
Algerians began three days of national mourning after the C-130 Hercules aircraft carrying 74 passengers, soldiers and their families, and four crew came down in bad weather on Tuesday in the northeast Oum El Bouaghi region.
One survivor was found, official sources said of Algeria’s worst aviation disaster in more than 10 years.
A special unit arrived at the crash site early yesterday, as search teams scoured the snowy and rugged area.
“Rescue reinforcements and sniffer dog teams have begun their search,” headed by the emergency service chief Mustapha Lahbiri, a source at the scene told reporters.
The male survivor, suffering from serious head injuries, was taken to the military hospital in the city of Constantine, where the plane had been headed, as were the bodies of the 77 dead.
No more information about the survivor was available.
“School notebooks and military duffle bags were also visible at the site of the crash,” he said.
Colonel Lahbiri said the black box flight recorder had not yet been found, contradicting earlier reports by Algerian media that rescue teams had located one of two black boxes.
The military transport plane was flying from the desert garrison town of Tamanrasset in the deep south to Constantine, 320km east of Algiers, and lost contact with the control tower as it was preparing to make its descent.
Algerian television broadcast images of the crash scene showing the broken carcass of the aircraft lying in a mountainous landscape, at an altitude of 1 500 metres.
“Very bad weather conditions, involving a storm and heavy snowfall, were behind the crash,” the defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
AFP
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