INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Algeria plane crash: The aircraft crashed soon after take off outside the capital city of Algiers
Algiers, according to officials
The plane came down near Boufarif airport shortly after taking off
The dead include the plane's 10 crew and 247 passengers, most of them members of the armed forces and their families, officials said.Reuters
reported that that plane was also carrying military personnel and members of Western Sahara's Polisario independence movement.The aircraft
was an Ilyushin II-76, and crashed 25 kilometres southwest of Algiers.Television footage showed black smoke billowing near a motorway and a
with smoke and flames rising from the wreckage.Hundreds of ambulances and dozens of fire trucks rushed to the scene.The aircraft is an
Ilyushin II-76, which is capable of carrying around 120 passengers
(File)The military aircraft was heading to Tindouf - an area on Algeria's border with Western Sahara - home to thousands of refugees from
the Western Sahara standoff, many of them Polisario supporters.Attempts to broker a settlement by the UN have failed for years in the vast
desert area, which has contested since 1975 when Spanish colonial powers left
Morocco claimed the territory while Polisario established its self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic there, reports Reuters.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.With inputs from Reuters and AFP
