A devastating aviation disaster has claimed 14 lives near the capital of South Sudan, after a small Cessna aircraft went down on the outskirts of Juba earlier this week, South Sudan’s Civil Aviation Authority has confirmed. All 13 passengers and one pilot aboard the flight lost their lives in the crash, which occurred roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the center of the capital.
The aircraft was en route to Juba from the southern South Sudanese town of Yei when it experienced an emergency that led to its crash. Preliminary investigations into the incident point to severe weather conditions as the most likely cause. Dense fog and low cloud cover drastically reduced visibility for the pilot, creating dangerous flying conditions that contributed to the accident, the authority said.
Among the casualties, two of the deceased hold Kenyan nationality, while all other 12 victims are South Sudanese citizens, the authority confirmed. No survivors have been found at the crash site.
Shortly after the crash was reported, an official investigative and response team was deployed to the remote hilly location to recover remains and begin piecing together the full circumstances of the disaster. User-generated footage of the accident scene that circulated widely across social media platforms in the hours after the crash shows smoldering wreckage of the plane still engulfed in open flames. The landscape captured in the videos matches the civil aviation authority’s account of poor weather, with heavy mist blanketing the hilly terrain where the aircraft came down.
The crash marks one of the deadliest aviation incidents in South Sudan this year, and it has prompted the national aviation authority to launch a full review to confirm the exact cause of the disaster and identify any safety gaps that may have contributed to the tragedy.