At least 30 killed in Sudanese airliner blaze

By Andrew Heavens

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A Sudanese airliner coming from Amman and Damascus burst into flames after landing in Khartoum on Tuesday night, killing at least 30 of the 214 people on board, officials and witnesses said on Wednesday.

At least 178 passengers and crew escaped the burning Sudan Airways plane and survived, while six others were still missing, the airline's general manager Abdullah Idris told journalists late on Wednesday.

Idris appealed for the six missing to get in touch, saying he hoped they had left the airport in the confusion after the blaze and had gone straight home without informing authorities.

The general manager refused to answer journalists' questions about the cause of the accident saying they were "premature" but confirmed that all the passengers had been Sudanese, apart from two Iraqis who were among the survivors.

Sudan's president Omar Hassan al-Bashir led hundreds of mourners at a public funeral for the 30 dead on Wednesday afternoon in Khartoum's El Sahafa cemetery.

The civil aviation authorities said all but one of the crew had been found alive.

"Whether (the fire was due to) a technical reason we don't know yet," airport director Yusuf Ibrahim told Sudanese TV.

"The plane was coming from Amman and Syria ... It landed safely at Khartoum airport and they talked to the control tower which told them where to taxi. At this moment an explosion happened," he said.