257 dead as Algerian military plane crashes shortly after take off

smoke coming off the field, as well as ambulances and Red Crescent vehicles arriving at the site.

It was the first crash of an Algerian military plane since February 2014, when a Usbuilt C-130 Hercules turboprop slammed into a mountain, killing at least 76 people and leaving just one survivor.

In 2003, 10 people died when an Algerian Air Force C-130 crashed after an engine caught fire shortly after it took off from the air base near Boufarik, according to the Aviation Safety Network’s database.

The previous deadliest crash on Algerian soil occurred in 2003, when 102 people were killed after a civilian airliner crashed at the end of the runway in Tamanrasset. There was a single survivor in that crash.

The flight had just taken off from Boufarik, about 20 miles southwest of the capital Algiers, for a military base in Bechar in southwest Algeria, according to Farouk Achour, chief spokesman for the civil protection services.

It was scheduled to make a stopover in Tindouf in southern Algeria, home to many refugees from the neighbouring Western Sahara, a disputed territory annexed by Morocco.

The Soviet-designed Il-76 military transport plane crashed in an agricultural zone with no residents, Achour said. The Il-76 model has been in production since 1970s.