Cargo plane, Panalpina charter, crashes in Nigeria

An MK Airline Boeing 747 cargo plane, which was flying out of Luxembourg en route to Nigeria, crashed on approach to Port Harcourt airport on Tuesday, reports Agence France-Presse.

Panalpina, a Swiss-based freight handling company which had chartered the flight and had cargo aboard the plane, confirmed the report of the crash.

The plane came down about 700 metres short of the runway in Port Harcourt, a main hub in the country’s multi-billion-dollar Nigerian oil industry.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, and weather conditions at the time of the crash were reportedly good.

Panalpina said nothing unusual was believed to be aboard the plane, which was chartered to carry equipment for the oil industry.

The head of Nigeria’s aviation agency had carried out an inspection of the site and found that all the airport equipment was working at the time of the crash.

Five British crewmen were hospitalised after the plane crashed and broke apart as it came in to land.
According to reports released so far, no one was killed in the accident.