GOMA: The wreckage of the missing cargo plane with three people on board was found Saturday in a national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, airport sources told AFP.
The Goma Express plane had been missing since Thursday. A source at Bukavu airport, the capital of South Kivu province, told AFP that a body was finally found in the middle of Kahuzi-Biega National Park on Saturday morning.
The plane took off on Thursday with three people on board, including two crew members, a Ukrainian pilot and a Ugandan co-pilot, as well as a passenger and supplies, he said.
The fate of the three was still unknown.
The plane took off from Kasese airport in eastern Maniema province and headed for Goma, capital of North Kivu province.
Due to bad weather, the pilot tried to land at Kavum airport in Bukavu but “had no success,” a source told AFP.
Kahuzi-Biega National Park is the last remaining eastern lowland gorilla habitat and covers over 6,000 square kilometers (2,300 square miles).
In the eastern interior of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, home to dozens of armed groups, small planes are the primary means of transporting basic supplies and minerals.
In 2020, another small plane crashed into the park, killing all four passengers.
