Six injured as Tanzania plane crashes shortly after take-off

Six people were injured when their plane crashed minutes after take-off in Mafia, eastern Tanzania.

The Rufiji Special Police Zone Commander, Mr Onesmo Lyanga said the six were taken to Mafia District Hospital for treatment. Three other people walked away unhurt and were allowed to proceed with their scheduled journey.

The Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) director general, Mr Hamza Johari, confirmed to The Citizen that the Tropical Airline plane with nine people on board crashed as it attempted to take off from Mafia Airport. Authorities are investigating the incident.

“We have already deployed a team of experts who will examine what happened. When that is done, we will be able to issue a complete statement,” Mr Johari said. “We are not aware of the cause but we are working with relevant agencies to establish the cause of crash.”

This is the second plane crash in Tanzania’s airspace in a week.

On Saturday, two South African pilots – who were involved in a project for teens to build a homemade plane and fly it across Africa – were killed when their plane crashed in Tabora, north-western Tanzania.

Des Werner and Werner Froneman were in a small plane supporting teenagers who last month flew a homebuilt aircraft from Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt.

The pilots had planned to travel from Uganda to Lilongwe in Malawi ahead of their return to South Africa on Monday.

However, they requested to land in Tanzania on Saturday after reporting engine problems.

The light aircraft landed at Tabora and after the pilots thought the engine problem had been fixed, they departed again, but crashed five minutes after take-off.

TCAA said experts are working to establish what caused the engine problem.