A Mozambique Airlines plane carrying 33, people crashed in a Namibian national park near the border with Angola, killing everyone on board, said Bollen Sankwasa, Namibia’s deputy police commissioner.
Some reports claim 34 may have died.
Initial reports claim the plane, carried 27 passengers, including 10 Mozambicans, nine Angolans, five Portuguese, and one citizen each from France, Brazil and China, and six crew members.
Flight TM470 from Maputo was scheduled to land in Luanda, the Angolan capital, on Friday afternoon. The airline initially said the plane may have landed in Rundu, northern Namibia. It said it co-ordinated with aviation authorities in Namibia, Botswana and Angola to try to find the missing plane once they confirmed it did not land in Botswana.
A Namibian police helicopter and officers on the ground searched for the missing plane. The area is vast and there are no roads, making it difficult to locate the plane, a police official, Willy Bampton, said.
The search was conducted in the 2,360 sq mile, Bwabwata national park, in northeastern Namibia, home to several thousand people, elephants, buffalo and other wildlife live in the park.
Airlines from Mozambique are among carriers banned in the European Union because of safety concerns.
Mozambique Airlines uses Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer aircraft.
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