Sudan military plane crashes near Khartoum, killing 15

USPA News - A Sudanese military transport plane crashed near the country`s capital on Sunday morning, killing fifteen people and injuring the seven survivors, a military spokesman said on Monday. It follows a deadly plane crash in the southern region of Sudan in August.

The Antonov An-12, which was carrying sixteen service members and six crew members, crashed on Sunday morning while attempting to carry out an emergency landing about 40 kilometers (24.8 miles) west of Omdurman, a city lying on the western banks of the River Nile, opposite the capital Khartoum. Colonel Al Sawarmi Khalid Saad, a spokesman for the Sudanese Armed Forces, said the pilot of the aircraft had declared an emergency shortly before the crash and indicated one of the engines had stopped working. The second engine failed soon after, causing the aircraft to crash during the emergency landing. The military spokesman said fifteen service members were killed while the seven survivors were injured and rushed to an area hospital for treatment. Their conditions were not immediately known. Al Sawarmi said the aircraft was carrying military equipment from Khartoum to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. The exact cause of Sunday`s accident was not immediately known. On August 19, a government aircraft crashed into a mountain near the town of Talodi in South Kordofan state, killing 26 passengers and six crew members. Among those killed was Guidance and Endowments Minister Ghazi al-Sadiq, a number of state ministers, senior officials from the defense forces, and journalists from the country`s state-run media.