A Precision Air plane crashed into Lake Victoria, Tanzania, on Sunday 6 November. There were 43 people on board.
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Un airliner, which was in the landing phase, crashed into Lake Victoria, Tanzania, on Sunday, November 6, due to bad weather. The latest report reported 19 dead, out of the 43 passengers on the ATR 42-500 type aircraft operated by the local private company Precision Air. The plane “crashed in water about 100 meters from the airport”, regional police commander William Mwampaghale told reporters at Bukoba airport.
Regional Commissioner Albert Chalamila said that 43 people, including 39 passengers, the two pilots and two crew members, were on board the flight from Dar es Salaam, the economic capital, to Bukoba, a city located in the edge of the lake, the largest in Africa and the one where the Nile has its source.
“As we speak, we have managed to save 26 people who have been evacuated to a hospital,” said Albert Chalamila earlier in the day.
Precision Air ATR 42-500 crashes into Lake Victoria while on approach to Bukoba Airport, Tanzania. It’s not immediately clear how many passengers/crew on board or if there are any fatalities in the accident.
Tanzania National TV David Mark Burna Boy Ajuri Teni Igbo Yorubas Atiku pic.twitter.com/KkhwTcacec
— Abiodun of Lagos (@idofoi) November 6, 2022
Videos released to local media show the plane largely submerged as rescuers in the water try to pick up survivors. Rescuers attempt to lift the plane out of the water using cables and cranes.
“Let’s keep calm”
The President, Samia Suluhu Hassan, expressed her condolences to those affected by the accident. “Let’s keep calm as the rescue operations continue and pray for God to help us,” she said on Twitter.
The chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, also sent his condolences, as did the secretary general of the regional bloc of the East African Community, Peter Mathuki. “Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the passengers […] and we stand in solidarity with the government and people of Tanzania,” he said on Twitter.
Precision Air, which is Tanzania’s largest private airline, released a brief statement confirming the accident. The company, which is part-owned by Kenya Airways, was founded in 1993 and operates domestic and regional flights as well as private charters to popular tourist destinations, such as the Serengeti National Park and the Zanzibar Archipelago. Its fleet consists of nine aircraft, including 3 ATR 42-500s, 1 ATR 42-600 and 5 ATR 72-500s. It is not known which of the ATR 42s crashed. The ATR-42 is manufactured by the Franco-Italian company ATR and assembled in Toulouse, in the south of France.
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The crash comes five years after 11 people were killed when a plane belonging to a safari company crashed in northern Tanzania. In March 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi crashed six minutes after takeoff in a field southeast of the Ethiopian capital, killing all 157 people on board. In 2007, a Kenya Airways flight from the Ivorian city of Abidjan to Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, crashed into a swamp after takeoff, killing its 114 passengers. In 2000, another Kenya Airways flight from Abidjan to Nairobi crashed into the Atlantic Ocean minutes after takeoff, killing 169 people while 10 others survived.
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