Official: Cause of deadly Sudan plane crash technical

By MOHAMED OSMAN Associated Press Writer

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - Engine failure is believed to have caused the plane crash in Sudan that killed 24 people, including key members of the southern Sudanese government, a senior official said Saturday.

The plane went down Friday in a remote area of southern Sudan, killing 21 passengers and three crew members. The most senior officials to die were Justin Yak Arop, a presidential adviser on decentralization, and Lt. Gen. Dominic Dim Deng, the minister overseeing the south's armed forces.

Gabriel Changson Chan, the southern Sudanese minister of information, said an investigation is planned, but that initial evidence indicates engine failure caused the crash.

"So far, we believe the cause of the crash is due to a technical failure with the engine of the plane," Chan told The Associated Press.

Southern Sudan has its own semiautonomous government following a peace deal in 2005 that ended more than two decades of civil war between the ethnic African south and Sudan's Arab-dominated government in the capital, Khartoum. The war claimed an estimated 2.2 million lives.

The south's leader, First Vice President Salva Kiir, described the crash as "one of the saddest" the region has witnessed and declared three days of mourning in the south, with flags on government buildings to be flown at half mast.

The Sudanese Civil Aviation Authority said the crash occurred in the village of Rumbek in the southern Bahr al-Ghazal province. The plane's captain contacted the airport tower to report engine trouble and request an emergency landing. It crashed before reaching the airport.

A U.N.-operated radio station that broadcasts in the area, Mireya FM, reported the plane belonged to the Southern Sudan Air Connection company.

Both the United Nations and United States expressed condolences over the deaths of the government officials.

"This human tragedy represents a great loss to all Sudanese as they strive to recover from decades of war," the U.S. Embassy in Sudan said in a statement.