Eight injured, Sudan Air Force crash closes Khartoum airport

All air traffic was suspended at Khartoum airport for much of Wednesday after an aircraft of the Sudan Armed Forces collided with another military aircraft on Wednesday morning.

Reports reaching Radio Dabanga suggest that and Antonov An-32 and an Antonov An-26 collided. One aircraft had just landed from ‘a training flight’ when the two Antonovs found themselves on the same runway. One aircraft rammed the tail of the other.

Eight people were reportedly seriously injured and were taken to hospital. The damage to both aircraft is extensive.

Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Abdelhafiz Abdelrahim said that according to standard operating procedure in such cases, airport authorities suspended air traffic for safety reasons.

The Sudan Armed Forces have not yet commented on the incident.

Helicopter crash

Last month two pilots were killed in when a military training helicopter crashed near Khartoum.

Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmed Khalifa El Shami explained in a press statement on September 21 that pilots Khalid Abdallah Abdelrahim and Jasim Ali Khojali died when their helicopter, that had taken-off from the Wadi Sayidna air base for a night training, crashed in the area of El Kodab north of Omdurman.

He said that crash was caused by a “sudden technical failure”.

It was the second crash of a military aircraft within a week. On September 17, 15 people were injured when a military aircraft crashed at the airport of Nyala, capital of South Darfur. The crash was caused by a technical defect in one of the engines.