Mozambique Airlines Plane Crashes In Namibia, Killing All 34 On Board

The Mozambican plane carrying 34 passengers and crew disappeared between Mozambique and Angola on Friday.

A Mozambique Airplane plane en route to Angola crashed in a game park in northeast Namibia killing all 34 people on board, a Namibian police official said on Saturday.

Namibian Police Force Deputy Commissioner Willy Bampton told Reuters the burned out wreckage of the aircraft, which went missing on Friday, was found in the Bwabwata National Park, near the borders with Angola and Botswana.

“The plane has been completely burnt to ashes and there are no survivors,” Bampton said.

Flight TM470 took off from the country’s capital, Maputo, at 11:26 (09:26 GMT) and was due to arrive in the Angolan capital, Luanda, at 14:10.

The last contact made with the plane was when it was over northern Namibia.

The authorities say most of those on board were Mozambican or Angolan, and several more were Portuguese. The aircraft also carried one citizen from each of Brazil, China and France.

Initially, the Airline said there were signs the aircraft might have landed near Rundu.

But on Saturday, Mr Bampton said villagers in the area had heard an explosion.

“Botswana officials informed us that they saw smoke in the air and they thought the crash happened in their country, but when they came to the border they realised that it was in Namibia,” Willie Bampton said.

The Bwabwata National Park in Namibia’s Kavango East region – covering around 6,100sq km (2,355 square miles) – is a sparsely-populated area of dense forests.

Agencies