Why Did IL-76 Cargo Doors Pop Open At 33,000 Ft.?

The death toll continues to rise in a scene that has become terribly familiar in Africa - another aircraft disaster.

In this case, a Russian-made IL-76 cargo plane (file photo during airdrop ops, right) with as many as 300 Congolese police officers, soldiers and members of their families on board suffered a major in-flight catastrophe; the rear cargo doors opened at 33,000, sucking dozens - perhaps hundreds - of people out of the cabin. They fell more than six miles to their deaths.

Continued Confusion

Different officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo tell different stories about what happened to the Ukranian military, which had been chartered by the Congolese military to fly soldiers, police officers and their families from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi. At the Kinshasa Airport, where the plane landed after the emergency, two officials told the AP 129 people had plunged to their deaths in the tragedy. Others say the number is 160. Still others believe there were 350 people crammed into the Il-76's cargo bay, along with at least one vehicle and other equipment. If that's true, more than 200 people are now missing and presumed dead.

"We have seen this type of aircraft take more than 300 people on board during troop flights," said a Kinshasa airport source in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Company.

The passenger list is incomplete. Authorities in the DRC may never know who was actually on board the aircraft. But slowly - very slowly - details of the horror six miles up are starting to come to light.

Survivor Horror Stories

Approximately 35 minutes after the Ilyushin left Kinshasa, the aircraft had climbed to 33,000 feet. But there was a problem. One passenger, identified by Reuters as Police Sergeant Kabmba Kashala, said the IL-76 had apparently taken off with the massive rear cargo doors improperly fastened. He said there were three attempts to fasten the doors inflight, to no avail. The doors sprang open and both passengers and cargo were literally sucked out of the aircraft.

One anonymous survivor told the French news agency AFP, "There were no seats, only a few folding chairs along the cabin walls. People were crammed onto benches and on the floor. When the door came off, the plane tipped to the right then to the left, and many people fell towards the hole." Another, Police Officer Mambaza said, "When the back door opened, I fell down and lots of boxes covered me," he told Associated Press news agency from a military hospital in the Congolese capital Kinshasa. "Lots of my colleagues were sucked out by the wind. I don't know how many, because I fainted." Mambaza told the AP he estimated, of the 350 people on board, no more than 100 had survived.

Mambaza's wife, Bebe, was also on the ill-fated IL-76. "Us women, we had a little bit of luck because we had been placed close to the cabin, therefore far from the door, but we sustained some damages." She said the shock of the disaster caused two pregnant women on board to miscarry.

Those who remained on board the depressurized aircraft literally grabbed anything they could to save their own lives. "It was by clinging with my arms and legs to the netting that I managed not to be sucked out like the others," one survivor told the AFP.

Two police officers said they survived by grabbing onto a truck that had been strapped down inside the cargo area. "The truck served as a barrier for most of the survivors, it prevented them from falling out of the gaping hole."

Sgt. Kashala remembered the exact moment the cargo doors burst open. "I was just next to the door and I had the chance to grab onto a ladder just before the... door let loose," he said.

The crew of the chartered IL-76 was reportedly from Russia. They were able to return to Kanshasa and land. Congolese officials say the investigation is underway and helicopters are combing the area for bodies.

FMI: www.travel.state.gov/congo.html