Reuters. A small passenger plane crashed southwest of South Sudan’s capital Juba on Monday (April 27), killing all 14 people on board, the country’s civil aviation authority said.
The aircraft, a Cessna 208 Caravan operated by CityLink Aviation, was flying from Yei to Juba International Airport when it lost communication with air traffic controllers, the authority said in a statement.
The plane took off at 9:15 a.m. local time and lost contact at 9:43 a.m., carrying 13 passengers and one pilot. Those killed included two Kenyan nationals and 12 South Sudanese nationals, it said.
Preliminary reports suggest the aircraft may have gone down in bad weather, particularly low visibility.
Recovery efforts were slow and difficult, according to the South Sudan Red Cross.
“It is not easy,” said Joseph Lukak Charles, head of the South Sudan Red Cross Juba branch, describing the hours‑long operation to reach the crash site. He said teams had to climb uphill to the wreckage and were still finishing recovery efforts by the afternoon.
Charles said the bodies were burned beyond recognition, and that arrangements were under way with authorities to transport the remains to the Juba Teaching Hospital mortuary.
“Right now we are arranging with the authorities to see how these bodies can be transported,” he said.
