17 die when plane plunges into house

A Hercules military transport plane crashed into a house shortly after take off from an Algerian airport today, killing at least 17 people, many of them children.

Seven other houses were damaged by debris from the plane or caught fire from leaking fuel that ignited in Beni Mered.

The Hercules had just left Boufarik military airport, 22 miles south-west of Algiers.

Police sealed off the crash site, where the remains of the cockpit and one of the plane’s wings could be seen from a distance. Plumes of smoke rose from one of the engines of the downed plane.

Captain Mohammed Moftefaoui of Algeria’s civil protection unit said rescuers were sifting through debris in search of survivors.

“Fortunately the plane crashed along a path where there were few homes. Otherwise the outcome would have been much more serious,” he said.

Five crew members as well as two women and three children inside the home that the plane destroyed were killed.

Seven other people on the ground, mainly youngsters, also died.

“The crash was like an earthquake. I think most of the victims were boys playing football just near the houses,” said eyewitness Tewfik Tchanmtchane.

At least five people were injured. Police, firefighters and rescuers rushed to the scene and evacuated the injured to regional hospitals for treatment.

Witnesses said they saw an engine on fire upon takeoff and officials said a technical fault was to blame.

In March, an Air Algerie passenger jet crashed and killed 102 people in the Sahara Desert. The crash was state-run Air Algerie’s first since it was founded in 1953, and the lack of experience in coping with airline accidents hampered rescue efforts.