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The 1996 Air Africa crash occurred on 8 January when an overloaded Zairese
Air Africa Air Africa was an airline based in Kahemba Airport, Zaire. The airline started flights in 1991 with a few destinations, operated by Moscow Airways, but closed in 1996 after the 1996 Air Africa crash. Fleet Destinations * N'Dolo Airport * K ...
's
Antonov Antonov State Enterprise ( uk, Державне підприємство «Антонов»), formerly the Aeronautical Scientific-Technical Complex named after Antonov (Antonov ASTC) ( uk, Авіаційний науково-технічни� ...
An-32B aircraft, bound for Kahemba Airport, overshot the runway at N'Dolo Airport in
Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one of ...
,
Zaire Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...
(now the
Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
) after failing to take off and ploughed into Kinshasa's Simbazikita street market. Four of the six crew of the aircraft that had been wet leased from
Moscow Airways Moscow Airways was a Russian airline that was formed as a subsidiary of Aeroflot to operate the airline's fleet of Ilyushin Il-62s. History It began operating in 1991, flying passengers and airfreight. Among the airline's destinations by ...
, managed to survive. However, between 225 and 348 fatalities and around 253 serious injuries occurred on the ground. This crash remains the deadliest in
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n history, and also one with the most ground fatalities of any air disaster in history, superseded only by the intentional crashes of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 in the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
.


Background

After decades of conflicts in
sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
, the air transport business is complex and often illegal. As Johan Peleman explained: It has been reported that this flight was carrying weapons to
UNITA The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ( pt, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, abbr. UNITA) is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for ...
:


Crash

While attempting to take off fully fuelled and overloaded from N'Dolo Airport's short runway, the An-32B did not achieve sufficient speed to bring its nose up, yet began to lift. It crashed into the open-air Simbazikita produce market, full of shacks, pedestrians and cars, and its full fuel load ignited. The number of casualties cited varies from 225 (per the manslaughter charges) to 348.


Aftermath

The first injured went to the Mama Yemo Hospital (now Kinshasa General Hospital), which was quickly overwhelmed. Two other hospitals took the additional victims. A worker with the
International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...
, Vincent Nicod, stated that 217 bodies were found at the market, in addition to 32 more bodies possibly already at morgues within the city. President Mobutu and Saolona both attended the funeral on 10 January 1996 at the Protestant ''Cathédrale du Centenaire''.''Info-Zaire''
Number 111 (English) – 19 January 1996 (translated from a document produced by Entraide Missionnaire – Montreal) The Russian pilots, Nicolai Kazarin and Andrei Gouskov, were charged and convicted of manslaughter, each receiving the maximum two-year sentence. At trial, they admitted they were using borrowed clearance papers from Scibe Airlift, that they knew the flight was illegal, and that the flight was actually bound for
Angola , national_anthem = "Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordinat ...
. Scibe Airlift and African Air paid fines of US$1.4 million to the families and the injured.William Henry
"The Forgotten Disaster in Zaire"
13 June 2006
The underlying hazards of overloaded aircraft overflying densely populated areas were not addressed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and on 4 October 2007 a virtual repeat occurred in the 2007 Africa One's Antonov An-26 crash at Ndjili, Kinshasa's other airport.David Learmont
Kinshasa sees repeat of ground carnage after crash
''Flight International'' 5 October 2007


References


External links

*J Rupert, Zaïre reportedly selling arms to Angolan ex-rebels, ''The Washington Post'', 21 March 1997.
Chaos am Himmel ueber Afrika ''Die Zeit'', (May 1996)
*Bolenge Ngbanz
"La place Type-K 'new look': un paradis pour les chasseurs d'immondices"
''l'Avenir'', 9 July 2008 *
Crash-Arien
(mixed en/fr)

12 January 1996
Aftermath of the crash
from ''
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...
Archive'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Air Africa One Crash Accidents and incidents involving the Antonov An-32 1996 in Zaire Aviation accidents and incidents in 1996 Aviation accidents and incidents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Airliner accidents and incidents involving runway overruns Air Africa accidents and incidents Moscow Airways accidents and incidents January 1996 events in Africa