100 are feared to be killed after a military plane crashed near the Boufarik airbase outside the Algerian capital, Algiers, media reports said. According to the report the Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft was carrying military troops and was heading to the western Algerian city of Bechar.
Mohammed Achour, chief spokesman for the civil protection agency said that more than 100 are dead and said they can’t determine at the moment. The cause remained unclear and an investigation has been opened, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
Emergency services were dispatched to the agricultural zone with no residents where the aircraft crashed. Boufarik Airport is a military air base located on the northern coast of Algeria, some 19 miles (30km) from the capital Algiers.
In 2014, more than 70 off-duty military personnel and their family members were killed when a C-130 plane crashed into the Djebel Fertas mountain shortly before it was to land in the northern city of Constantine.
In December 2012, two military jets conducting routine training operations collided in mid air near Tlemcen, in Algeria’s northwest, killing the pilots of both planes.
A month earlier, a twin-turboprop CASA C-295 military transport aircraft, which was carrying a cargo of paper for the printing of banknotes in Algeria, crashed in southern France. That plane was carrying five soldiers and a representative of the Algerian central bank, none of whom survived.
