Mozambique Airlines plane crashes in Namibia, killing 33

Police on Saturday found the burned wreckage of a Mozambican Airlines plane the day after it went missing in northeastern Namibia, saying none of the 34 people aboard had survived.

The crash in the remote, swampy terrain of Namibia's Bwabwata National Park killed victims from several countries and is one of the worst accidents on record in Mozambique's civil aviation history.

"My team on the ground have found the wreckage. No survivors. The plane is totally burned," Willie Bampton, a regional police coordinator in Namibia's Kavango region, told AFP.

Flight TM 470 left Maputo on Friday for the Angolan capital Luanda with 28 passengers and six crew when it lost contact with air traffic controllers, a statement on national carrier’s website read.

The flight left the Mozambican capital Maputo at 4:26 a.m. EST (0926 GMT) on Friday and was due to land in Luanda almost four hours later. With 100 seats, it was two-thirds empty. Last contact with air traffic controllers was made at 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT) over north Namibia during heavy rainfall.

Namibian Police Force Deputy Commissioner Willy Bampton said rescue workers had found the burned-out wreckage of the aircraft, en route from Mozambique to Angola, in the dense bush of Bwabwata National Park, where Namibia turns into a narrow strip of land sandwiched between Botswana and Angola.

"The plane has been completely burned to ashes and there are no survivors," Bampton said.

The remote, 2,300 sq mile park is home to wildlife including elephants, lions and wild dogs. Mozambican officials said there had been bad weather and poor visibility at the time the plane, an Embraer 190, went missing.

Mozambican authorities confirmed it was a Brazil-manufactured Embraer 190 aircraft and said it was the newest plane in the airline's fleet. Embraer issued a statement confirming the crash and extending "its support to investigating authorities, in pursuit of the causes of the accident."

It said a team of its technicians would go to the scene.

A Bwabwata game ranger at the scene said the plane's black boxes, including the voice recorder, had been located and taken by investigators. The Mozambican government confirmed the crash and said it would declare a period of national mourning for the victims.

"The plane was transporting six crew members, and 28 passengers of whom 10 were Mozambican, nine Angolans, five Portuguese, one French, one Brazilian and one Chinese," said Mozambican Transport and Communications Minister Gabriel Muthisse.

In Portugal, the foreign ministry said the Brazilian in fact had dual Portuguese-Brazilian nationality.

The European Union banned the airline, known in Portuguese as Linhas Aereas de Mocambique (LAM), and all air carriers certified in Mozambique from flying in its airspace in 2011, citing "significant safety deficiencies.” The concern was about Mozambique's civil aviation authority, rather than the track record of the various airlines. Namibian police sent a search team to the area after Botswanan officials alerted them of a plane crash.

"Botswana officials informed us that they saw smoke in the air and they thought the crash happened in their country, but when they came to the border they realized that it was in Namibia," said the Namibian regional police coordinator.

The search for the plane was hampered both by the rough terrain and torrential rains pounding the area, he told AFP.

"There are no proper roads, you have to go through the bush slowly and it's making our job difficult," he said. Villagers who had heard explosions helped point police in the right direction.

Before the wreckage was found, people close to those on board gathered at Maputo airport, many frustrated at what they said was the lack of information.

"They told us it was a forced landing. I know it's a crash," said Luis Paolo, a friend of a Portuguese businessmen on the flight. Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva published a condolence message to victims' families.

The accident is the deadliest for Mozambique since a plane carrying then-president Samora Machel crashed in 1986 in South Africa en route home from an African leaders' summit. That crash, which shocked the world, remains a mystery but speculation has lingered that it was linked to tensions with the then-apartheid regime in South Africa. The crash claimed at least 34 lives.

Mozambique said it would set up a commission of inquiry to work with Namibian authorities on Friday's crash and expected to make its preliminary results public within 30 days.

Al Jazeera and Wire Services