BUKOBA, Tanzania
Tanzanian authorities on Tuesday said the wreckage of a plane that crashed in Lake Victoria has been pulled out of the water, following the country's deadliest air accident in decades.
Nineteen people died when the
Precision Air plane went down on Sunday as it approached the north-western town
of Bukoba, prompting a frantic rescue effort by emergency workers, fishermen
and residents to pluck people to safety from the largely submerged aircraft.
"We have completely
removed the plane out of water and now the professional investigation into the
cause of the accident is under way," the Tanzania Airports Authority (TAA)
said in a statement.
"Bukoba Airport will also
be reopened soon to allow aviation operations to continue as usual," it
added.
Video footage broadcast on
local media showed the plane's twisted wreckage being pulled up by a crane, its
nose collapsing towards the ground, before it was deposited on a patch of
grass.
Precision Air, a publicly
listed company and Tanzania's largest private carrier, said the aircraft was an
ATR 42-500, manufactured by Toulouse-based Franco-Italian firm ATR, and had 39
passengers -- including an infant -- and four crew members on board.
ALSO READ: Critics blame Tanzania government for lack of disaster management and response readiness
Twenty-four survived out of the 43 people aboard flight PW 494 from commercial city Dar es Salaam.
The victims included a Kenyan
citizen and a British national, government spokesman Gerson Msigwa told
reporters in Bukoba.
"We are communicating
with the respective embassies to transport the bodies," he said.
Msigwa said investigators from
ATR were expected in Tanzania on Tuesday to join their counterparts from
Precision Air and the TAA, who arrived in the lakeside city on Sunday.
Police blamed bad weather for
the accident amid questions about the government's capability of handling of the rescue
effort.
Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa
said the government would do more "to ensure safety in the aviation
transport sector".
Precision Air, which is partly
owned by Kenya Airways, was founded in 1993 and operates domestic and regional
flights as well as private tourist charters.
The accident comes five years
after 11 people died when a plane belonging to safari company Coastal Aviation
crashed in northern Tanzania.
In 1999, a dozen people,
including 10 US tourists, died in a plane crash in northern Tanzania while
flying between Serengeti National Park and Kilimanjaro airport. - Africa
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