A Sudanese military cargo plane, an Ilyushin, crashed in the Idarawib area west of Salloum, approximately eight kilometers from General Abdel Fattah al Burhan’s army controlled Port Sudan, shortly after departing from Osman Digna Air Base on Tuesday evening.
A military source confirmed that the Ilyushin Il-76 went down while attempting a landing near the critical port city, resulting in the immediate death of all crew members on board due to the impact and a subsequent fire.
Burhan’s army has yet to release any official statement regarding this devastating aviation accident, which has inevitably drawn attention to a recent string of similar incidents affecting both the military and civilian sectors across the nation.
It is a similar military cargo plane crash in the Babanusa area of West Kordofan State earlier this year, which involved conflicting accounts of the cause from the involved parties.
At the time, Burhan’s army stated the Babanusa crash was due to a technical malfunction, while the Rapid Support Forces claimed responsibility for successfully shooting the plane down after it completed an airdrop mission.
