A plane carrying DR Congo’s Minister of Mines, Louis Watum Kabamba, and his delegation crashed on Monday at Kolwezi airport.
The aircraft caught fire but all passengers were safely evacuated in time.
The flight, which had departed from Kinshasa and was bound for Kolwezi in Lualaba province, missed its landing before bursting into flames.
According to Isaac Nyembo, the minister’s communications adviser, all twenty or so occupants managed to exit the aircraft before the fire spread. “We all got out before the flames engulfed the aircraft,” he said.
Witnesses reported a technical malfunction — possibly related to the tires — that may have caused the aircraft to veer off the runway.
The minister and his team were travelling to the region to monitor the response to a deadly landslide at a mining site, an incident that claimed more than 30 lives, according to provincial authorities.
Although such incidents are rare in the area, planes overshooting runways while landing and aircraft accidents have previously been reported on some poorly maintained provincial airstrips.
However, no similar incident involving a ministerial delegation had recently been recorded in Kolwezi or other mining zones.
DM/te/lb/as/APA