The toll from Sunday's plane crash in Tanzania has surged to 19, prime minister Kassim Majaliwa said, after the Precision Air flight with dozens of passengers plunged into Lake Victoria while approaching the northwestern city of Bukoba.
All Tanzanians are with you in mourning the 19 people who lost lives during this accident, Mr. Majaliwa said after arriving at the airport in Bukoba, where the flight had been scheduled to land from the financial capital Dar es Salaam.
Regional authorities said 26 survivors out of the 43 passengers on board PW 494 had been pulled to safety and taken to a hospital in the lakeside city.
But Precision Air, a publicly-listed company which is Tanzania's largest private carrier, said in a statement that 24 people had survived the accident, with an airline official telling AFP that the other two hospitalised patients were not aboard the plane to begin with.
Two people who were injured during rescue efforts have been counted as survivors but they were not passengers, he said on condition of anonymity.
The airline said it has dispatched rescuers and investigators and expressed its deepest sympathies over the accident, which happened at around 08:53am 0553 GMT on Sunday.
The airline said the aircraft was an ATR 42 - 500, produced by Toulouse-based Franco-Italian firm ATR, and had 39 passengers - including an infant - and four crew members on board.
Rescuers, including fishermen, were waded through water to bring people to safety, according to the footage broadcast on local media.
Emergency workers employed ropes to lift the aircraft out of the water, aiding cranes as residents also sought to help.
We pray to God to help us, President Samia Suluhu Hassan said. The disaster is among the worst plane crashes in the East African nation's history.
The US embassy in Dar es Salaam, South Africa, released a statement, acknowledging the heroic efforts of first responders, especially ordinary citizens who helped rescue victims. Both the chair of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, and the secretary-general of the East African Community bloc, Peter Mathuki, shared their condolences.
Our hearts and prayers go to the families of passengers on a plane that crashed into Lake Victoria, Mr. Faki said on Twitter.
The East African Community joins and sends our condolences to Mama Samia Suluhu Hassan, families and friends of all those affected by the Precision Air plane accident, Mathuki said on Twitter.
Precision Air, a part of Kenya Airways, was founded in 1993 and operates domestic and regional flights as well as private charters to top tourist destinations like Serengeti National Park and the Zanzibar archipelago.
The accident comes 5 years after 11 people died when a plane belonging to safari company Coastal Aviation crashed in northern Tanzania.
In March 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi plunged into a field southeast of the Ethiopian capital, killing all 157 people on board.
The disaster, five months after a similar attack in Indonesia, triggered the global grounding of the aircraft for 20 months before it returned to service in late 2020.
A Kenya Airways flight from Abidjan to Nairobi, Kenya's capital, crashed into a swamp in July 2007 after take-off, killing all 114 passengers.
In 2000, another Kenya Airways flight from Abidjan to Nairobi crashed into the Atlantic Ocean minutes after take-off, killing 169 people, while 10 survived.
A dozen people, including 10 US tourists, died in a plane crash a year ago in northern Tanzania.