Guinea crash claims 22

Press, 5 January 1987, Page 8

Guinea crash claims 22

NZPA-Reuter Madrid A total of 22 people are now known to have died when a Spanish Air Force plane crashed off the coast of Equatorial Guinea on Saturday. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said yesterday the dead included the wife and five children of an Equatorial Guinea Cabinet Minister. Half of the victims were Spanish, and included nuns and a priest involved in voluntary work in Spain’s former colony. The remaining 11 were Guineans, among whom were the family of the Trade and Industry Minister, Fortunato Nzambi Machinde, a nun and a military officer described as the director-general of co-operation. The death toll had originally been put at 18 by the Spanish Foreign Ministry. The Government sent

an Air Force transport plane to bring home the bodies of the Spanish victims. The accident happened soon after the twin-engine Aviocar plane took off from the mainland town of Bata on a routine flight to Malabo, 300 km to the north on the island of Bioco. The plane failed to gain height and dived into the sea. The Foreign Ministry said that among the victims were the Mother Superior and deputy secretary of the Calasancia order, who had been out to visit the order’s missions over Christmas. The others were three nuns and a priest of the Salesian order, the priest’s sister, who had also been visiting over Christmas, a doctor, the three crewmembers and Mr Nzambi Machinde’s children.