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By Francine Bina KINSHASA (Reuters) - Scores of soldiers with their wives and children have been sucked to their deaths from a cargo plane over the Democratic Republic of Congo after the back ramp burst open, says one of the survivors. Congo's information minister on Friday said seven people were sucked out of the Russian-built plane ferrying military personnel from Kinshasa to the southern Katanga province on Thursday evening. He said he did not know how many were on board. "I think there were about 200 people on board, soldiers and their families, women and children," said Prudent Mukalayi, a soldier recovering at Kinshasa's general hospital who said he survived because he was jammed against a packing case. "I was asleep and then I heard people screaming. When I woke up the pilot told everyone to get to the front of the plane and there were about 40 of us, but people kept dying...there were only about 20 survivors." Information Minister Kikaya Bin Karubi told reporters the ramp had burst open at 10,000 feet over the city of Mbuji-Mayi. He did not know how many people were aboard the plane, but a Russian aviation official said he believed there were 129 passengers, a mixture of military officials and civilians. PLANE GOT BACK HOME After the disaster, the aircraft's crew managed to turn the plane around and land in the capital Kinshasa. Witnesses at the airport said the plane looked old and run down. The back door had snapped away. The government said the army would take journalists to Kinshasa airport to see the plane, an Ilyushin 76 chartered by the Congolese army to fly from the capital to Lubumbashi. Officials said it was common for the army and the government to charter cargo planes to transport military personnel and civil servants, often with their families, between Kinshasa and Lubumbashi -- Congo's second biggest city and home to a big military base. The ruined state of Congo's road network means that long-distance journeys have to be made by air, though many aircraft are old and poorly maintained.

that's too bad...

Its been updated now. They say the rear cargo door burst at 33,000 feet.

They say the rear cargo door burst at 33,000 feet.

Darn, that must have been one brutal fall...and the women and children..i guess im speechless

ouch...but i think that the passengers were already unconcious before they hit the ground.

Unfortunately Blades report was part of a BIG mistake by the press apparently, it was 10,000 ft or 3000 meters, so they knew all about it.
This is unbelievable! We waste all this money on petty things, but we don't give a tuppeny damn about helping countries worse off than ourselves to prevent these sort of disasters, and it wouldn't be much to us in the West either....

Ozzy

One of my contacts tells me that the rear pressure bulkhead of the IL-76 was lifted to the roof and the a/c was seemingly flying at low level,  unpressurised (to have enough oxygen for all the pax.), when the rear door  opened...

Maybe some individual that did not know to not touch buttons/levers etc.. in  the a/c, made a poor decision in choosing one of these (cargo door opening ever/button) to play with?

Apparently the doors failed and 'fell' off. I feel really sorry for those people, it is a terrible and terrifying way to die.

Ozzy