Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Thirty-two of the 33 passengers and crew on a United Nations plane died when it crashed while trying to land at the Kinshasa Airport in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) Monday afternoon 4 April. The plane was carrying UN staff, most but not whom all of worked for Monusco, the UN’s stabilization mission in Congo, but the UN news service reports that there were also five people on board who worked for humanitarian organizations.
The plane was trying to land in heavy rain, according to the UN, when it overshot the runway at 13:30, after a flight from Kisangani in the northeast.
A tourist plane carrying 14-15 people, mostly foreign tourists according to early reports, crashed early Tuesday 24 August in the Himalayas near the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, after their plane was unable to land in Lukla, a popular trekking area in the Everest region. There are reportedly no survivors. Bad weather, with heavy rain and poor visibility, is hampering rescue workers, according to a government ministry. Foreign embassies, including the US, are trying to determine if their citizens were on board; four Americans and one Japanese were reportedly among the passengers, but the government has not given details about the others.
Links to other sites: AFP/France24, BBC, Channelnewsasia
Update 3 17:00 An Airblue plane with 152 people on board has crashed in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, and authorities now say all those aboard were killed (ed. note: earlier reports that indicated there were some survivors were wrong). The plane was en route from Karachi to Islamabad, and it crashed in the Margalla Hills due to bad weather, shortly before landing. Rescue workers have reached the area, using helicopters, but heavy fog is hampering rescuers. Ninety bodies have been recovered.
Airblue is a low-cost airline that flies mainly within Pakistan, offering several daily flights between Karachi and Islamabad. It also flies to five cities in the Middle East and Europe but does not fly to Turkey.
Times of India carries a list of the passengers on the plane.
Links to other sites: CNN, Geo-TV Pakistan (CNN affiliate), NDTV, Reuters
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - An 18-year-old Spanish youth who went missing Sunday afternoon in heavy fog while snowboarding in the French Alps has been found alive. The young man was near the resort of Deux-Alpes (map), at an altitude of 3,200 metres, when he became lost in bad weather, which then prevented search parties from finding him. His life is not in danger, say French authorities, although he was suffering from hypothermia and appeared to have given up on being found when skies cleared long enough for a helicopter patrol to find him at 1,275 metres, only 500 metres from the road, as the crow flies.
Rescuers are calling it a miracle, that he managed to get down some 2,000 metres of untraced mountain without any avalanches or cliffs.
Links to other sites: TF1 (Fre), 20 Minutes (Fre)
