Dozens Killed In Sudan Plane Crash

An investigation was under way Wednesday to discover what caused a jetliner that had just landed in a thunderstorm to veer off a runway and burst into flames in Sudan's capital.

More than half of the 214 people on board were able to escape but authorities say it is still unclear how many died in the inferno. Officials say dozens were killed.

Police spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed Abdel Majid al-Tayeb told the official SUNA news agency Wednesday morning that the fire has been completely extinguished and civil defense officials were now examining the wreckage to determine the causes of the crash.

The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that 103 passengers and all 11 crew members survived. In addition, it said some other passengers may have gone home directly after the crash making an exact count difficult. Officials said most aboard were Sudanese.

Civil aviation has also asked its counterpart in Amman, Jordan, the origin of the flight, for the passenger manifest to determine who was actually on the flight as the original was destroyed in the crash, SUNA reported.

Death toll reports conflicted. State TV initially said about 100 were killed, but officials later put the toll at dozens without being more precise. Deputy parliament speaker Mohammed al-Hassan al-Ameen said "about 30 people" died, while police spokesman al-Tayeb said 23 bodies were brought to the morgue.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the Sudan Airways jetliner appeared to have left the runway after landing at Khartoum International Airport, and several loud explosions resounded as fire raced through the aircraft.

The roaring blaze dwarfed the Airbus A310's shattered fuselage as firefighters sprayed water, Sudanese TV footage showed. Ambulances and firetrucks rushed to the scene, and media were kept away.

A survivor speaking at the airport to Sudanese TV said the landing was "rough," and there was a sharp impact several minutes later.

"The right wing was on fire," said the passenger, who did not give his name. He said smoke got into the cockpit and some people started opening the emergency exits. Soon, fire engulfed the plane, he said.

"As we landed, the engine burst into flame - I was sitting right next to it," said passenger Kamal Eddin Mohammed, to the pan-Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera. "It was horror inside the plane."

The cause of the accident wasn't immediately known and there were differing reports on the role weather played.

A sandstorm had hit the area with 20 mph winds between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. and there was a thunderstorm and similar winds at the time of the crash around 9 p.m. local time, said Elaine Yang, a meteorologist with the San Francisco-based Weather Underground, a private weather service.

The head of Sudanese police, Mohammad Najib, said bad weather "caused the plane to crash land, split into two and catch fire."

Youssef Ibrahim, director of the Khartoum airport, disputed that bad weather was to blame and told Sudanese TV that the plane "landed safely" and the pilot was talking to the control tower and getting further instructions when the accident occurred.

"One of the (plane's) engines exploded and the plane caught fire," Ibrahim said. He blamed the accident on technical problems, but didn't elaborate.

Due to inclement weather, the aircraft stopped at Port Sudan Airport along the Red Sea, picking up 35 passengers and refueling before heading to Khartoum.

Sudan has a poor aviation safety record. In May, a plane crash in a remote area of southern Sudan killed 24 people, including key members of the southern Sudanese government. In July 2003, a Sudan Airways Boeing 737 en route from Port Sudan to Khartoum crashed soon after takeoff, killing all 115 people on board.

The Airbus A310 is a twin-engine, widebody plane used by a number of carriers around the world. Typically configured with about 220 seats, it is a shorter version of the popular A300.

An Airbus spokesman in Paris declined immediate comment on the crash.

In July 2006, an A310 operated by Russia's S7 Airlines went off the runway after landing in Irkutsk, smashed into adjacent buildings and caught fire, killing 123 of the 203 people aboard.

Although deaths from air travel have fallen over the past two years, the number of serious jetliner accidents increased last year for the first time in a decade, according to a report last month by the International Air Transport Association. Nearly half of all jet accidents occurred on landing in 2007.