Rescuers recover bodies from Congo plane wreck

Rescue workers have recovered the bodies of 17 people killed when an aid plane crashed into a mountain in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this week, the United Nations said yesterday.

The 19-seat Beechcraft aircraft, contracted by US-based Air Serv International, went down in bad weather on Monday around 15 kilometres northwest of the town of Bukavu, on Congo's eastern border with Rwanda. "They have found all 17 bodies. They will be brought back to Bukavu today, weather permitting," Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, military spokesman for Congo's UN peacekeeping mission, said.

He said the plane's flight recorder had also been recovered from the wreckage.

Difficult mountainous terrain and bad weather initially hindered rescue efforts as peacekeepers struggled for three days to reach the site of the crash.

A copy of the passenger manifest seen by Reuters showed six foreigners were aboard: Aid workers from France, India, Canada and neighbouring Congo Republic, and two pilots from South Africa and Britain.

The remaining 11 passengers were listed in the manifest as citizens of Democratic Republic of Congo.

In addition to the two-man crew, the flight was carrying aid workers from the Dutch branch of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, Handicap International, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

Air Serv is one of several entities and private contractors which service the large community of aid workers operating in Congo, a vast, mineral-rich former Belgian colony which is still suffering a humanitarian crisis triggered by a 1998-2003 war.

Most humanitarian organisations operating in the country restrict travel by their personnel on commercial flights because of local airlines' abysmal safety record and frequent crashes.