At least 257 killed in Algerian plane crash
Air disaster is deadliest in almost four years
At least 257 people were killed when an Algerian military plane crashed soon after takeoff in the north of the country, officials said Wednesday.
It is the deadliest plane crash since Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a missile July 17, 2014, over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 aboard.
The Algerian plane went down in a field near the Boufarik military base, about 20 miles from the capital, Algiers, and close to the Mediterranean Sea.
Algeria’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that 247 passengers and 10 crew members were killed. It said most of the victims were soldiers and their relatives.
The bodies were taken to an army hospital in the town of Ain Naadja for identification, the ministry said.
The Soviet-designed Ilyushin Il-76 was headed for Bechar in southwestern Algeria, the official Algerie Presse news agency reported.
The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately known.
An investigation has been opened, the Defense Ministry said.
The Il-76, which is widely used for commercial freight and by the military, has been in production since the 1970s and has a good safety record.
It was the first crash of an Algerian military plane since February 2014, when an American-built C-130 Hercules turboprop slammed into a mountain in Algeria, killing at least 76 people and leaving one survivor.