DRC: Three-day National mourning for victims of Kisangani plane crash (July 8)

 

Doomed Hewa Bora Flight EO-952

Boeing 727-100 (registration 9Q-COP)

Kisangani, July 8, 2011

“in bushland off the runway”

(Credits)

A three-day national mourning for the 74 victims of the plane crash that happened yesterday, July 8, in Kisangani was decreed today by the Congolese government. 

According to The Aviation Herald:

“A Hewa Bora Airways Boeing 727-100, registration 9Q-COP performing flight EO-952 from Kinshasa N'Djili [Airport] to Kisangani (Democratic Republic of Congo) with 112 people on board, missed Kisangani's runway while attempting to land in poor weather conditions (heavy rain, limited visibility, thunderstorms in the area) at 15:00L (14:00Z) and broke up coming to rest about 300 meters from the runway. Emergency services rescued at least 42 people alive, at least 46 occupants perished.”

The time of crash given above, however, is Kinshasa time (15:00 Local Time = 14:00 Zulu Time or GMT) whereas Kisangani is one time zone ahead of Kinshasa.  The crash might have therefore occurred at 4 PM local time.

The death toll has since risen to 74 and is likely to increase as 40 severely injured survivors are still being treated at the inadequately equipped and poorly staffed local Cliniques Universitaires and Hôpital Général though Radio Okapi, quoting local medical sources, asserts that “[the condition of survivors] wasn’t worrisome.”  

For the remains of the crash victims, still according to the same Radio Okapi report, “concerns are mounting”:

“The victims’ bodies are at the morgue of the reference hospital of Kisangani, which has been broken down for the past several months.

If nothing is done, they’d quickly decompose, observers say.

However, the identified remains have been taken by their relatives.

As had been those of the bishop of Isangi diocese.”

   

Monsignor Camille Lembie (photo below) was returning to his diocese (via Kisangani) from a session of the Commission Episcopale Nationale du Congo (CENCO), the DRC Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was set to ordain a priest in Isangi on Sunday.

Léonard Santedi, a cleric who’s the CENCO secretary general, is quoted by Radio Okapi dubbing the Congolese prelate as “a true combatant for justice” within the Congolese Conference of Catholic Bishops. (For conservation scientists of WILDLIFEDIRECT working in the area, however, the Catholic prelate was a plunderer of forest resources in his diocese and beyond: see their assessment of the man in their April 30^th 2008 post on their blog here.)     

  

Radio Okapi also reports that in the morning of Saturday, July 9, “scores of people rushed to the University Clinics and the Reference General Hospital of Kisangani where had been taken survivors” of the crash, in order to see whether their family members were among them. Adding that “the central government has decreed a three-day national mourning, starting this Saturday.”

 Monsignor Camille Lembie

Bishop of Isangi Diocese

Plane crash victim

(Credits)

UPDATE: Congolese Football Association reels after Kisangani air crash (BBC)

BBC Kinshasa sports correspondent Patrice Citera reports today that “All the league matches in DR Congo have been postponed this weekend after five match officials died in a plane crash” that occurred in Kisangani yesterday:

“Three referees Mahugu Mboti, Fiston Mayabuana and Bejamin Bambe, match commissioner Norbert Mafuta and FA official Mr. Chic Tshimuanga died in Friday's accident.

The officials were on their way to Kisangani to supervise Sunday's league match between Malekesa and TP Mazembe.

The passenger plane from Kinshasa crashed at the Kisangani airport.

The general secretary of the DR Congo federation Bedi Ediba, whose cousin is referee Bambe, expressed his sadness about the deaths.

‘It is really sad news for me to lose my cousin whom I know was a very honest referee, Ediba told BBC Sport.

‘I am yet to recover from the shock that struck me when news of his death and the death of the others was relayed to me.

‘It is always bad when you lose a person you worked with like Mr. Tshimuanga from the League Committee, with whom I worked closely in the Kinshasa local league before I joined the executive of the DR Congo FA.’"