Cargo plane crash in Khartoum kills 4 crew

By Andrew Heavens

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A cargo plane crashed shortly after taking off from Khartoum airport on Monday, exploding into a fireball and killing all four crew, witnesses and officials said.

Hours after the crash -- the fourth fatal air accident in Sudan in two months -- state media said Sudan's president had dismissed the head of the civil aviation authority.

"The accident happened ... just seconds after it took off. Four of the crew, all of them Russians, were killed," said Abdel Hafiz Abdel Rahim, spokesman for the CAA.

He said the plane was carrying goods to south Sudan's capital Juba for Ababeel Aviation, a private cargo company.

Director of Khartoum Airport, General Yousif Ibrahim, told state news agency SUNA that a technical problem had occurred shortly after take-off.

A U.N. official, declining to be named, identified the aircraft as a Russian-built Ilyushin Il-76.

Witnesses said the plane appeared to have careered across a major road, tearing down power lines in its way, and exploded in an open space near an office building.

Wreckage was strewn across a wide area and firefighters pumped water and foam over the remains of the fuselage. "There are huge patches of dark engine oil," said one witness.