South Sudan suspends airline after plane crash

JUBA, South Sudan

South Sudan's president on Wednesday suspended the operation of South Supreme Airlines, the company owning the plane that crashed in the Pieri Town on Tuesday evening, an official statement said.

“As a temporary measure to deal with these avoidable air accidents before the laws governing civil aviation are strengthened via legislative means, I am hereby directing Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation Authority to suspend South Supreme Airlines’ operations in South Sudan. This measure is necessary for these institutions to ascertain airworthiness of the remaining South Supreme planes, and restore public confidence in air travel in the country,” President Salva Kiir Mayardit said in a statement read out on the state-owned South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation.

A commercial plane crashed late Tuesday in South Sudan, killing all 10 people on board, according to the Jonglei state governor, Denay Jock Chagor.

Ten people, including eight passengers and two pilots, lost their lives after South Supreme Airlines flight HK-4274 bound for the capital Juba took off from the town of Pieri in Jonglei state and crashed, said Chagor.

“We have not yet established what the cause of the crash was, whether it was technical or human error,” Transport Minister Madut Biar Yel told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday in Juba.

“Black box of the plane will be sent to the manufacturing company in Ukraine to establish the cause of the crash,” he said.

This is the second such accident involving an aircraft operated by the regional airline. The first one occurred in 2017, when a South Supreme Airlines plane caught fire and made a crash landing, but there were no fatalities.

South Supreme Airlines could not be reached for comment on the latest incident.