Medical plane carrying seven disappears off coast of Senegal
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Version 0 of 1. An air and sea search is underway for a medical evacuation plane carrying seven people, including a French patient, which is thought to have crashed off the coast of Senegal. The twin-engine aircraft flying from Burkina Faso to Dakar disappeared from radars shortly after 7pm on Saturday over the Atlantic, 69 miles west of the Senegalese capital, said the country’s civil aviation authority Anacim in a statement. Senegal’s air force was searching the area on Sunday for wreckage of the plane that left Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, at 4.35pm the day before, according to airport sources in Burkina Faso. Senegal’s state press service, APS, reported that search operations led by two air force planes and a navy ship had continued through Sunday afternoon. The plane, which had been due to arrive in Dakar at 6.20pm, belonged to the private Senegalair company, said Anacim. No reason has been given for why the plane seems to have overshot Dakar so far to the west, when it was last seen on radar. Senegal’s Futurs Medias news group reported that the aircraft was suspected of having run out of fuel. Apart from the patient, the plane was carrying two Senegalese nurses and a doctor as well as a Congolese man and two Algerian crew members. Contacted by AFP, France’s foreign affairs ministry declined to reveal the identity of the French patient who was being airlifted, nor the reason for the person’s presence in Ouagadougou. Officials did say the French embassy in Dakar was in contact with the patient’s family. |