At Least 50 Feared Dead in Africa Plane Crash

A Russian-made plane believed to be carrying more than 50 passengers and crew crashed in a forest in Equatorial Guinea, killing all aboard, officials said Sunday.

The Antonov-32 plowed into dense woods 18 miles south of the country’s capital, Malabo, on the island of Bioko, shortly after leaving the city’s airport Saturday for the southern town of Bata on the mainland, Information Minister Alfonso Nsue Mokuy said.

“There are no survivors. The plane crashed in the trees and is completely burned,” he said.

Searchers reported that some bodies were scattered in trees, he said, and wreckage was strewn for hundreds of yards.

There was confusion about the number of crew and passengers aboard the plane operated by the Equatorial Guinea-registered company Equatair.

Mokuy said the plane was carrying 60 people.

Transport Minister Demetrio Elo Ndong Nsefumu had estimated 55 passengers and crew were aboard, but warned the correct number might never be known.

Flight manifests can often be incomplete in many of Africa’s poorest countries, and planes are frequently rickety, Cold War-era castoffs from former Soviet republics.