Four Russians dead in latest Sudan air crash

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

KHARTOUM (AFP) — Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Monday sacked the civil aviation boss after a cargo plane crashed and burst into flames in Khartoum in the fourth fatal air accident in two months.

Major General Abu Bakr Jaafar was dismissed by presidential decree after the crash of the Russian-made Ilyushin cargo plane that killed four Russian crew members and narrowly missing homes.

Beshir, who was at the African Union summit in Egypt, also grounded all Ilyushin and Antonov planes and ordered a committee to investigate the run of recent accidents, the state media said.

Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Abdel Hafez Abdel Rahim told AFP that he had seen the report on the SUNA state news agency but passed no comment on what he referred to as a "political...