Mozambique Airlines Crash Leaves 33 Dead

A Mozambique Airlines crash in a remote border area in Namibia has left all 33 passengers on board dead. The plane came down in a national park near to the Namibian border with Angola.

Local police and authorities are currently investigating what caused the Mozambique Airlines plane to crash. The aircraft was carrying 10 Mozambique nationals. Nine Angolan, five Portuguese, and one each French, Brazilian and Chinese passengers were also killed.

All six of the crew members on board were also killed, who comprised the two pilots, three flight attendants, and a maintenance technician. The flight, TM470, was en-route from Maputo to Luanda on Friday afternoon.

Initially it was thought that the pilot may have landed in Rundu in the north of Namibia but when that was not confirmed a full search was undertaken.

The search for the crashed plane was not a simple one as the area where it went down is so remote and there are no roads. A police helicopter was deployed in order to assist officers searching on the ground.

Embraer, the company which made the Mozambique Airlines plane which crashed, said that the plane was a relatively new one, having only been delivered to the company in November 2012.

They said in a statement: “A team of Embraer technicians is preparing to go to the scene of the accident.” They also confirmed that the aircraft had flown over 2900 hours since it was purchased, with no safety issues.

The director general and CEO of the International Air Transport Association, Tony Tyler, said about the tragic Mozambique Airlines crash: The overall safety record for Africa remains a problem that we must fix.”

Crash investigators are now checking the black box flight recorder to try to establish a cause for this Mozambique Airlines plane crash.