Club Med Charter Crashes in Senegal, Killing 30 of 56

A chartered airliner carrying French tourists to a Club Med resort crashed into a marsh on Sunday in Senegal, killing 30 of the 56 people on board and injuring about 20, authorities said.

The crash occurred before dawn in good weather. Investigators were sent from the West African nation’s capital, Dakar, to open an inquiry.

Survivors told Senegalese and French radio that the plane crash-landed almost immediately after the pilot announced that it would land in five minutes.

Club Mediterranee, which chartered the plane for a 45-minute domestic flight from Dakar to its Atlantic Coast resort at Cap Skirring, said at least a third of the survivors were seriously hurt. Radio Senegal said three were in comas.

Aviation officials in Dakar said it was possible that the pilot was disoriented and thought he had reached the Cap Skirring airfield, about 30 miles south of the crash site. The plane reportedly crashed with its landing gear down.

Paris-based Club Med said the plane carried 50 passengers, all French except for a Belgian couple, and six crew members. The company said four of the crew members were among the 30 killed.

The U.S. Embassy in Dakar said it was sending a representative to the scene to investigate statements by Senegalese aviation officials that the pilot and co-pilot were Americans.

The aviation officials said the other crew members consisted of two Gambians and two Britons. It was not disclosed which crew members survived.

Club Med officials said that about two-thirds of the injured were in stable enough condition to be flown back to Paris on a special medical plane today.

They were treated at a hospital in Ziginchor, capital of the southern Senegalese region of Cassamance, then airlifted by French military helicopters to Dakar for admission to a military hospital.

Club Med, one of the world’s largest resort operators, said it was the first time one of its chartered planes has crashed since the company was formed in 1950.

Senegalese officials said the aircraft was a Convair 640, chartered from a Gambian company, Gamcrest, by Air Senegal on behalf of Club Med.

The plane took off from Dakar about 4:30 a.m. for a 45-minute flight southward to Cap Skirring. Club Med operates a 350-bed vacation village there, one of its 110 resorts worldwide.

The plane crashed near the village of Kafunting, 120 miles south of Dakar. The wreckage was found by local police, and rescue efforts were organized by Senegalese soldiers and some of the French troops based in the former French colony.