Helicopter crash on Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro kills five, aviation authority says

DAR ES SALAAM: A helicopter crashed on Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro, killing five people, the civil aviation authority said on Thursday, while local media reported that the aircraft was on a medical rescue mission.

The helicopter crashed near the mountain’s Barafu Camp on Wednesday, Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement.

Mwananchi newspaper and East Africa TV, citing Kilimanjaro region’s head of police, Simon Maigwa, reported that the helicopter was on a medical rescue mission.

Among the dead were a guide, a doctor, the pilot and two foreign tourists, Mwananchi cited Maigwa as saying, without giving the tourists’ nationalities.

Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak, is nearly 6,000 meters (20,000 ft) above sea level. The crash happened between 4670 and 4700 metres, Mwananchi reported.

Around 50,000 tourists climb Kilimanjaro annually.

Earlier, the Libyan army’s chief of staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, died in a plane crash on Tuesday after leaving Turkey’s capital Ankara, the prime minister of Libya’s internationally recognised government said, adding that four others were on the jet as well.

“This followed a tragic and painful incident while they were returning from an official trip from the Turkish city of Ankara. This grave loss is a great loss for the nation, for the military institution, and for all the people,” Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah said in a statement.

He said the commander of Libya’s ground forces, the director of its military manufacturing authority, an adviser to the chief of staff, and a photographer from the chief of staff’s office were also on the aircraft.