Plane crashes into market place in Congo

15 Apr, 2008 18:46 / Updated 16 years ago

A plane has crashed into a market in Goma a city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, killing at least 21 people on the ground. The Congolese airline says that the 79 passengers onboard survived.

There's some confusion over the exact number of casualties as a local governor and the Congolese Red Cross initially reported that there were only sixsurvivors and more than 70 dead. The accident is reported to have happened shortly after the DC-9 passenger jet, owned by the private company Hewa Bora, took off on a flight to the country's capital, Kinshasa.