Official Cites Pilot For Bravery

Seven people are dead in the wake of a crash involving an Ilyushin IL-76 near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum Thursday. Among the dead were six Russians and one Sudanese. Sudanese officials praised the flight crew, saying they went to extraordinary lengths to avoid going down in a populated area.

"He (the captain) said there was something wrong with the fuel system... A few minutes later it disappeared from the screens," Civil Aviation Authority director Abu Bakr Jaafar told Reuters. "Of course, it is too early to tell what is the cause."

The aircraft was owned by a Sudanese cargo company -- Air West -- and was on a flight from Sharjah, UAE, to Nyala, Sudan with a stop in Khartoum.

"This was a courageous move." Jaafar told The Associated Press. The aircraft went down east of the Nile River at about 0800 local time, initially appearing to head for a residential area. "He changed his flight to move the plane out of the inhabited area."

Weather at the time was said to have been VMC.

It was the second aviation accident in the Sudan since October. That's when an Antonov AN-12 went down in the central part of the country, killing four Russian crew members.

FMI: www.sudan.net