Aviation

7.9, crash, fatalities

Congo: three foreigners and a Congolese pilot died after the private plane they were travelling in crashed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The passengers were two South Africans and an American. The plane, which belonged to the DRC airline ITAB, appeared to have hit an overhead power cable shortly after taking off from Fungurume, a mining area 200km northwest of Lubumbashi. The plane had taken off in the direction of Lubumbashi, capital of the mineral-rich Katanga province in southeastern DRC. ITAB was one of 50 other DRC airlines on a European Union blacklist of about 100 air companies banned from flying in EU airspace.