Reports indicate that 19 passengers died following a crush of a plane owned by precision air into Lake Victoria while trying at Bukoba airport in Tanzania. Albert Chalamina, Bukoba regional commissioner added that 26 passengers were rescued.
“The plane had a total of 43 people, out of them 39 were passengers, 2 plane service attendants and 2 pilots, a total of 43 people. As i speak now we are glad to have rescued 26 people and they have been taken to Kagera refferal hospital,” Albert Chalamina, Bukoba regional commissioner in Tanzania said.
Prime minister in Tanzania, Kasi Majaliwa visited Kagera referral hospital at Bukoba and confirmed the rescued victims from the crush accident. It is however suspected that among the 19 passengers who died were among 2 pilots.
Among the survivors rescued from the accident, he narrated and said it was due to bad weather conditions that made the pilot to land into the lake. He said he was lucky to seat at the back of the plane as that being the cause of him being alive.
“My name is Richard Komba, I was travelling from Dar el Salaam to Bukoba. From Dar el Salaam to Mwanza the weather condition was good, but when we passed Mwanza it was bad. The pilot informed us that the weather condition was cloudy and rainy. He said if the weather condition continued, he would turn the plane back to Mwanza. There was a lot of trembling, afterwards we found ourselves in water. Water flowed into the plane as people who sat at the front started drowning. We who were at the back we struggled to get outside,” one of the survivors narrated on the incidence.
According to the manager at Bukoba airport Cecilia Kamwela, she stated and said the crush incidence was not only an accident by a way for concerned operators to better on the skills of dealing with such accidents in order for them to enhance their ability to tackle such incidences.
“After the rescue, I would like to deliver my report that, that was not only an accident but also as a way of a rescue operation. According to several guidelines of piloting, nationally and internationally, safety laws of airlines 2006 of civil aviation act and also guidelines of airports and other regulations, suppose us to do rescue operations at least once for 2 years in order to measure on how rescue organisations deal with such plane accidents,” Cecilia Kamwela said.
The head of state in Tanzania Suluhu Hassan sent a message of hope to families of the victims and the citizens of Tanzania at large, saying there are together in such a difficult situation. The centres have been created in order for the families of the victims to know information of their relatives.
By James Chacha
