Plane crash kills Sudanese minister

Khartoum: Sudan's defence minister and a presidential adviser have been killed in a plane crash, state media reported.

Nineteen other people in the aircraft were also killed when the plane crashed in the remote Bahr Gazal region of southern Sudan on Friday, the SUNA news agency reported.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash that killed Minister of Defence Dominic Dim Deng and Justin Yak, an adviser to the Southern Sudan president.

SUNA said the pilot radioed a control tower in the city of Rumbek just before the crash, requesting permission to land because one of the engines had technical problems.

A few minutes later, the tower lost contact with the plane.