In Tanzania, after the crash of a plane in Lake Victoria in early November, a report from the Ministry of Transport published on Tuesday points the finger at the chaotic management of the emergency services. Nineteen people died on November 6 when the Kenyan company’s Precision Air plane Kenya Airways dived into the waters of Africa’s largest lake. It was carrying 43 passengers. If there had been immediate rescue operations, more people could have been saved according to the report.
Ill-equipped, slow, disorderly, the preliminary report of the Tanzanian Ministry of Transport, raises multiple dysfunctions of the rescue teams.
First, the fact that there was only one lifeboat planned for 43 passengers. Then, the response time: five hours, while the alert had been given 15 minutes after the accident. Once there, ” the divers were unable to work, due to a lack of oxygen in their scuba tanks and a lack of fuel “, underlines the report.
It was finally thanks to the intervention of a crew member and a passenger that the twenty-six survivors were able to get out of the aircraft. They could then be recovered by local fishermen, the first to arrive on site. Since then, the local press praises one of the fishermen, and assures that he would have received 1 million Tanzanian shillings or 400 euros, for his courage.
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Police attribute the reason for the crash to poor weather conditions. An investigation into the exact circumstances is ongoing. President Samia Suhulu Hassan has ordered the country’s emergency response to be stepped up after the accident, Tanzania’s worst air crash in decades.