Plane carrying 24 people missing in Congo

KINSHASA - A plane carrying 19 passengers and five crew members has gone missing in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a senior civil aviation official in the vast central African country said on Wednesday.

Antonov-12 took off from Goma at 8pm NZT on Wednesday.

"It was expected to go to Kindu but the last contact we had with it was three minutes after takeoff and it has not arrived in Kindu," Raymond Sangara, head of the civil aviation authority in eastern Congo, told Reuters by telephone from Goma.

He said another aircraft had been sent to look for the plane but had so far found nothing, while two United Nations helicopters also sent to search had not yet reported back.

Kindu lies roughly 400km southwest of Goma.

A five-year civil war which ended in 2003 destroyed much of Congo's infrastructure. Planes are often the only way of covering huge distances in a country the size of Western Europe.

Ten people were killed earlier this month when an Antonov plane flown by a Ukrainian crew crashed into trees and caught fire near Congo's northeastern city of Kisangani.

At least 350 people were killed when an Antonov cargo plane crashed into a crowded market in the capital Kinshasa in 1996, while in December 2003 an Antonov-26 crashed into a market near the town of Boende, 600km from Kinshasa.

- REUTERS