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Khartoum: Conflicting reports say bad weather or technical issue caused the tragedy in Sudan, while authorities are being blamed for the country's poor aviation record.
Mohammad Najib, head of Sudanese police, said just after the tragedy that bad weather had "caused the plane to crash land, split in two and catch fire."
However, Youssef Ibrahim, the director of the airport, subsequently denied that bad weather had caused the crash, saying a technical reason was to blame.
The airbus carrying 214 people veered off the runway in a thunderstorm and burst into flames late Tuesday, killing dozens unable to escape the inferno. Officials said more than 100 people fled the plane before it was engulfed by towering orange flames.
Raqeeb Abdel-Latif, head of the Sudan Airways office in Damascus, Syria, said the plane, which joined the Sudanese national carrier seven months ago, took off from Damascus and stopped in Amman, Jordan, where 34 additional passengers came on board.
Due to inclement weather, the aircraft stopped at Port Sudan Airport along the Red Sea, picking up 35 passengers and refueling before heading back to Khartoum, the Sudanese ambassador said in Washington.
The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that 103 passengers and all 11 crew members survived. In addition, it said some other passengers may have gone home directly after the crew helped them through the emergency doors. Officials said most aboard were Sudanese.
Spokesmen for the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington said they were monitoring the situation. The Khartoum airport was shut down until Wednesday morning, officials said.
Poor record
Sudan has a poor aviation safety record. In May, a plane crash in a remote area of southern Sudan killed 24 people, including key members of the southern Sudanese government. In July 2003, a Sudan Airways Boeing 737 en route from Port Sudan to Khartoum crashed soon after takeoff, killing all 115 people on board.
After that crash, Sudanese officials blamed sanctions for restricting vital aircraft parts. The US State Department said there was no ban on equipment needed for aviation safety.
In 1997, then-President Clinton issued an executive order barring the export of goods and technology to Sudan because of the country's ``support for international terrorism, ongoing efforts to destabilize neighboring governments, and the prevalence of human rights violations.''
The UN Security Council has imposed an embargo on providing arms or military training to armed groups in Sudan's Darfur region and a travel ban and asset freeze on some people implicated in the violence there.
The Airbus A310 is a twin-engine, widebody plane used by a number of carriers around the world. Typically configured with about 220 seats, it is a shorter version of the popular A300.
An Airbus spokesman in Paris declined immediate comment on the crash.
In July 2006, an A310 operated by Russia's S7 Airlines went off the runway after landing in Irkutsk, smashed into adjacent buildings and caught fire, killing 123 of the 203 people aboard.
Although deaths from air travel have fallen over the past two years, the number of serious jetliner accidents increased last year for the first time in a decade, according to a report last month by the International Air Transport Association.
Nearly half of all jet accidents occurred on landing in 2007.
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