At least 33 people died when a passenger aircraft carrying 85 people crashed into a crowded neighbourhood yesterday in Goma, a town in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Smoke engulfed the charred ruins of the aircraft, which appeared to have broken in two when it failed to take off and slammed into houses and shops at the end of the runway. Soldiers kept onlookers away as UN peacekeepers helped to douse flames at the site.

Officials said that they did not know how many residents were among the dead and the 80 injured. Julien Mpaluku, the governor of the province, said that there were 79 passengers on board and six crew members.

“We have already picked up dozens of bodies,” he said. “There are a lot of flames, which makes it difficult to know if the bodies are those of passengers or passers-by or people that lived in the area where the plane crashed.”

Mr Mpaluku said that one of the pilots was among the survivors. The airline claimed that most passengers had survived the crash, though witnesses said only six had been rescued.

The aid agency World Vision, whose employees visited the crash site, said that the aircraft had “failed to leave the ground”, and ploughed through “wooden houses and shops in the highly populated Birere market”.

The runway used to be longer, but was partially blocked by lava from a volcano in 2001.

The DC9 passenger plane is owned by Hewa Bora, a private airline based in the country. It was headed to the capital, Kinshasa, 700 miles (1,100km) away.

Only last Friday, the European Union added Hewa Bora Airways to its blacklist of airlines banned from flying in the European Union. The EU said that all 50 airlines based in the Democratic Republic of Congo were banned from EU airspace because of “lack of effective control by the civil aviation authorities”. (AP)

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