257 dead in Algeria military plane crash: official
Algiers, Algeria - An Algerian plane with around 100 army personnel on board crashed on Wednesday shortly after taking off from an airbase outside the capital, a military source said.
Algiers, AlgeriaAt ข least 257 people, mostly soldiers and members of their families, were killed in an Algerian military plane crash Tuesday, the defence ministry said.
The II-76 crashed shortly after take-off from the Boufarik airbase, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) southwest of the capital Algiers.The dead include the plane's 10 crew and 247 passengers, most of them members of the armed forces, the ministry said in a statement.
According to an AFP photographer at the scene, thick black smoke rose from the wreckage of the plane which crashed in a field near the base.
Hundreds of ambulances and dozens of fire trucks with their sirens wailing rushed to the scene.
The aircraft is an Ilyushin II-76, the military source told AFP, asking not to be named.
In February 2014, 77 people died when a military plane carrying army personnel and family members crashed between Tamanrasset in southern Algeria and the eastern city of Constantine.
The C-130 Hercules transport aircraft came down in the mountainous Oum El Bouaghi region.
In July 2014 an Air Algerie passenger plane flying from Burkina Faso to Algiers crashed in northern Mali, killing all 116 people on board including 54 French nationals.//AFP