The death toll from Sunday’s plane crash in Lake Victoria in Tanzania has jumped to 19, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said.
An airplane belonging to Tanzania’s Precision Air crashed into Lake Victoria on Sunday, November 6, 2022.
According to Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC), the plane was about to land at Bukoba Airport in Northwestern Tanzania but due to the poor weather conditions, it crash-landed into the lake.
The passenger plane had departed Dar es Salaam to Bukoba, a two-hour flight according to Precision Air social media handles.
Majaliwa told a crowd after arriving at Bukoba airport on Sunday where the flight had been scheduled to land from financial capital Dar es Salaam.
“All Tanzanians are with you in mourning the 19 people who lost lives during this accident,”
Regional authorities and the airline earlier said that 26 survivors out of the 43 people on board flight PW 494 had been pulled to safety and taken to hospital in the lakeside city in Kagera region.
It was not immediately clear if the 19 victims included rescuers who drowned or whether the 48-seater aircraft had more people on board than previously disclosed, a regional official said.
“We are continuing to investigate, there is a possibility that two people were not onboard but died during the rescue effort,” said Kagera regional commissioner Albert Chalamila.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan expressed her condolences to those affected by the accident.
Precision Air, a publicly-listed company which is Tanzania’s largest private airline, it said the aircraft was an ATR 42-500, manufactured by Toulouse-based Franco-Italian firm ATR.
Video footage broadcast on local media showed the plane largely submerged as rescuers, including fishermen, waded through water to bring people to safety.
Emergency workers attempted to lift the aircraft out of the water using ropes, assisted by cranes as residents also sought to help.
