TheNewsGuru

Tag: Crash

  • Buhari mourns Air Force officers who died in helicopter crash

    President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed heartfelt condolences to the Nigerian Air Force, and relations of five people who lost their lives in a military helicopter crash January 2 in Damasak, Borno State.

    The president mourns Flight Lieutenant Perowei Jacob (Pilot in Command), Flight Lieutenant Kaltho Paul Kilyofas (Co-Pilot), Sergeant Auwal Ibrahim (Flight Technician), Lance Corporal Adamu Nura (Gunner), and Aircraftman Meshack Ishmael (Gunner), who died in the mishap.

    Commiserating with the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, President Buhari said it was sad that the fine officers and men lost their lives in the bid to guarantee the safety and protection of their countrymen.

    He said rather than dampen the morale of troops fighting the insurgency in the North-east, the unfortunate development would rather bolster their resolve to completely eliminate all evildoers within the shortest possible time.

    To the families and relations of the dead, President Buhari condoles with them, noting that the dead officers and men were heroes, who paid the supreme price for peace to reign in the country.

  • Train crash kills nine, injures 47

    Train crash kills nine, injures 47

    Nine people were on Thursday killed and nearly 50 injured in Turkey when a high speed train collided with a locomotive and crashed into a station platform and overpass in Ankara, officials said.

    Rescuers worked to free people trapped under the mangled wreckage at Marsandiz train station, 8 km (5 miles) from central Ankara.

    It was not clear at which speed the train and locomotive were traveling when the collision occurred.

    There was light snow on the tracks.

    The train had been heading from Ankara to the central Turkish province of Konya and was not due to stop at Marsandiz.

    Ankara Governor Vasip Sahin said the locomotive, which lay battered 20 meters (22 yards) further ahead, carried out track inspections.

    Three train drivers were among the nine killed in the crash, Transport Minister Cahit Turhan told reporters on the scene.

    There were 206 passengers on the high speed train, according to state-owned Anadolu news agency.

    The agency also reported that the Ankara state prosecutor’s office had launched an investigation.

    Turkey has been developing a network of high-speed rail links during Tayyip Erdogan’s 16-year-old rule as it looks to ease the burden on increasingly congested highways.

    NAN

  • Four die, 13 injured as four vehicles crash in Abuja

    Four persons have lost their lives in an early morning crash involving four vehicles at Ushafa-Bwari road on Monday.

    It was gathered that three males and one female died, while 13 others were injured in the accident which involved a commercial bus, a 2001 Mazda 232 car, 2004 Toyota Corolla and another Toyota Corolla.

    The Federal Road Safety Corps Education Officer, Bisi Kazeem, attributed the crash to dangerous driving, adding that the injured had been taken to the Bwari General Hospital for treatment, while the dead were deposited at the morgue.

    He explained that the FRSC personnel in Bwari and the Police got to the scene shortly after the crash and cleared the obstruction to enable free passage of vehicles.

    “The injured and the dead victims have been taken to Bwari General Hospital, the obstruction was cleared and traffic control handed over to Inspector Linus of Motor Traffic Division, Bwari Police outpost,” Kazeem explained.

  • Five die, 13 survive in helicopter crash

    Five die, 13 survive in helicopter crash

    Twelve mainly Russian climbers and a crew member have survived a helicopter crash in the mountains of Tajikistan.

    But three Russian climbers and two Tajik pilots died in the accident in the Pamir Mountains in east Tajikistan.

    The “hard landing” of the helicopter happened at 17:30 (11:30 GMT) on Sunday, Tajik officials said.

    Russian news agencies said the helicopter had taken the climbers from a nearby base camp on the Fortambek glacier on the Ismoili Somoni peak.

    Of the 12 climbers to survive, two are Belarusian and Spanish and the remainder Russian. The surviving crew member was from Tajikistan.

    The helicopter, a Russian-built Mi-8, crash-landed on the edge of the Fortambek glacier, approximately 300 km (186 miles) east of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe.

    At 7,495m (24,590ft), the Ismoili Somoni mountain is Tajikistan’s highest and a major tourist attraction.

    It was known as Communism Peak when Tajikistan was part of the Soviet Union and renamed after a 10th-Century Tajik national hero in 1998.

    The Pamir mountain range is often described as the “roof of the world”.

    BBC

  • Algeria: More than 250 killed in military plane crash

    More than 250 people were killed when a military plane crashed in a field near Algeria’s capital on Wednesday, state media said, with witnesses saying they saw a wing catch fire shortly after the plane took off.

    Dozens of firefighters, rescue workers and military officials worked around the blackened fuselage of the aircraft, which had been ripped open near its wings.

    Bits of mangled and smoldering debris were scattered across the field near Boufarik airport southwest of Algiers. Earlier TV images showed flames and smoke billowing from the site of the crash.

    “This morning at around 8:00 an Ilyushin model military transport plane … crashed directly after takeoff in an agricultural field that was clear of residents,” Major General Boualem Madi told state TV.

    A line of white body bags could be seen on the ground next to the wreck of what media said was a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 transport plane, part of which was still intact.

    “After taking off, with the plane at a height of 150 meters I saw the fire on its wing. The pilot avoided crashing on the road when he changed the flight path to the field,” Abd El Karim, a witness, told the private Ennahar TV station.

    Another witness said: “We saw bodies burned. It is a real disaster”.

    A total of 257 people were killed, most of them military, the defence ministry said. Ten crew and other people described as family members died, and a number of survivors were being treated at an army hospital, the ministry added.

    A member of Algeria’s ruling FLN party told Ennahar the dead included 26 members of the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed group fighting for the independence of neighboring Western Sahara, a territory also claimed by Morocco in a long-running dispute.

    A source close to Polisario said that the dead included four refugee children and that around 30 refugees who had received medical treatment in the capital had been killed in all.

    The plane had been heading to Tindouf on the border with Western Sahara, Algeria’s defence ministry said. Tindouf is home to tens of thousands of refugees from the Western Sahara standoff.

    The defence ministry said in a statement it would investigate the cause of the crash, and it expressed condolences to the families of the victims.

    Doctors who have been on strike for months over their pay and work conditions resumed work to treat the survivors, residents said. Some 70 ambulances arrived at the scene after the crash, local media said.

    The U.N. has long been trying to broker a settlement for Western Sahara, which has been contested since 1975 when Spanish colonial powers left. Despite Morocco’s claims, Polisario established its self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in part of the territory.

    Previous major air accidents in Algeria include an Air Algerie flight that crashed in northern Mali in July 2014 carrying 116 passengers and crew, nearly half of them French, en route from Burkina Faso to Algeria.

    In February that year, an Algerian Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules crashed in a mountainous area in eastern Algeria killing 77 passengers and leaving one survivor.

    Reuters

  • Fourteen killed in Canadian youth hockey team bus crash

    Fourteen killed in Canadian youth hockey team bus crash

    Fourteen people were killed when a bus carrying a Canadian junior hockey team collided with a truck in Saskatchewan province, police said, in one of the worst disasters to strike Canada’s sporting community.

    The tragedy sent shock waves through the hockey-loving nation and engulfed the home of the Humboldt Broncos ice hockey team, a small farming town of fewer than 6,000 people, in grief. Fifteen survivors were taken to hospitals, with three of them in critical condition, police said.

    The team had been traveling to a playoff game when the accident occurred at about 5:00 p.m. on Friday near the Tisdale area, around 185 miles (300 km) north of Regina.

    “Our Broncos family is in shock as we try to come to grips with our incredible loss,” Kevin Garinger, the team’s president, said in a statement.

    The players had been on their way to compete in Game 5 of a playoff series against the Nipawin Hawks.

    The Hawk’s president, Darren Opp, told the Globe and Mail newspaper that the truck, a semi-trailer, T-boned the players’ bus.

    “It’s a horrible accident, my God,” he said. “It’s very, very bad.”

    The cause of the crash could not be immediately confirmed, however, and police said nothing about the identity of the dead or condition of the truck driver.

    Citing relatives, the Canadian Press reported that the Broncos’ head coach Darcy Haugan and the team’s 20-year-old captain, Logan Schatz, were among those killed.

    Many social media users posted Haugan’s photograph alongside messages of shock and sympathy, and the hashtags #prayersforhumboldt and #humboldtstrong.

    “God bless Darcy Haugan for being an incredible mentor and coach to young hockey players and prayers for his family to help cope with their immense loss,” the Western Provinces Hockey Association wrote on Twitter.

    National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman said the NHL mourned the passing of those who died “and offers strength and comfort to those injured while traveling to play and be part of a game they loved.”

    Reuters

  • 10 dead as light plane crashes into house in Philippines

    Ten people, including three children, were killed on Saturday when a twin-engine light aircraft crashed into a house in the northern Philippines, officials said.

    The Piper 23 Apache plane had just taken off from an airport in the town of Plaridel in Bulacan province when it stalled and plunged, said the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

    The plane, which was on its way to the northern city of Laoag, was carrying four passengers and the pilot, who were all killed in the crash, Aviation Authority spokesman, Eric Apolonio, said.

    The co-pilot, who was on the flight manifest, reported that he was not able to go on the trip, he added.

    The aircraft burst into flames as it crashed into the house in a nearby village, killing five residents, according to Plaridel town Mayor Jocell Vista Casaje.

    “Three children aged 7, 10 and 17 years were among those killed in the house. We just retrieved the last body from the gutted house,” Casaje said.

    The father of the family that lived in the house said his two sons, wife, daughter and mother-in-law were home during the accident, said Felicisima Mungcal, head of the provincial disaster relief agency.

    “The house was totally gutted by the fire,” she said, adding that the victims were reportedly having lunch when the accident happened.

    The father of the family, who arrived after some bodies had already been retrieved, was “very distraught but accepted it was an accident,” Casaje said.

    Investigators have yet to determine what caused the plane crash. Aviation authorities have grounded all aircraft of the company that operated the ill-fated Piper 23 Apache.

     

  • Just in: Senator John Shagaya is dead

    Former Senator representing Plateau Southern Zone, General John Nanzip Shagaya (Rtd), has died following a ghastly motor accident on his way to his hometown, Langtang.

    Shagaya reportedly died following a motor accident that occurred while he was on his way to Langtang, Plateau state.

    General Shagaya was recently appointed as the Chairman National Institute for Policy and Strategy Studies (NIPSS) by President Muhammadu Buhari.

    He ran for reelection in April 2011 on the Labour Party (LP) platform, but was defeated by Victor Lar of the PDP. As a non commissioned officer (NCO) with the 2nd Reconnaissance Squadron in Abeokuta, he participated in the Nigerian Counter-Coup of 1966.

    He was a former minister of internal affairs during General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime . He was born on September 2, 1942.

    Details soon…

     

  • JUST IN: 4 dead, 6 injured as airplane crashes into sea in Cote d’Ivoire

    Four people were killed and six injured when a small cargo airplane crashed off the shores of Cote d’Ivoire, according to Reuters, citing a local airport management company.

    The country’s security minister said the four dead were Moldovan citizens while the four injured were French.

    The turboprop plane was flying during a storm accompanied by heavy rain and lightning, Reuters reported, adding that it broke into several pieces.

    The airplane, reportedly carrying cargo for the French military, crashed into the sea shortly after take-off at Abidjan Airport in Cote d’Ivoire.

    A search and rescue operation is underway at the crash site.

     

    Details later…

  • 56 injured in Barcelona train crash

    At least 56 people were injured when a train crashed as it was entering a central station in Barcelona during the morning rush on Friday, the Regional Emergency Officials said.

    The regional commuter train was travelling from the ocean-side village of Sant Vicenc de Calders to the north-eastern Spanish city.

    The train derailed as it made its way into the Franca station, located near the Catalonia regional parliament building in Barcelona.

    Officials said 19 people were taken to hospital while the rest were treated on the platform by paramedics.

    They said several people bled with wounds on their heads and falling over one another as the train careened off its rails.

    Transport Minister Inigo de la Serna and Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau visited the scene along with other politicians.

    The Railway Company and police have launched an investigation into the cause of the crash.

    Initial findings showed the 31-year-old train driver, who escaped with minor injuries but was said to be in a state of shock, was not going at an excessive speed.

    He had seven years’ experience on the job.