30 dead in Angola military plane crash: official

LUANDA: A military plane crashed Wednesday at Huambo airport in central Angola killing at least 30 people, including three army generals, a military official told AFP.

"I don't know what happened, the plane was fine during taxi and takeoff, and then I really do not know what happened," captain Jose Goncalves who is one of the survivors said from hospital.

The Brazilian-made aircraft which had several army officers on board crashed after takeoff.

Six survivors were taken to a military hospital and treated for burn wounds, a doctor said.

A hospital official said five suffered second degree burn wounds and one passenger was treated for first degree burn wounds.

The plane was due to stop over in Benguela en route to the capital Luanda.

The dead were not immediately identified and the cause of the accident is not yet known, said national news agency Angop.

Oil-rich Angola, which vies with Nigeria for the title of Africa's top producer of crude, has been on a massive infrastructure spending spree since the end of its nearly three-decade civil war which ended in 2002.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011