Safety

Ukraine’s Kharkov State Aircraft Manufacturing Company (KSAMC) has confirmed the identity of an Antonov An-74 which crashed in the vicinity of N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, two days ago.

The aircraft lost was an An-74TK-200 variant, registered UR-74038, belonging to KSAMC. It was the same jet which KSAMC has previously used for demonstrations and displays at trade events in recent years including the Paris and Farnborough air shows.

It crashed near the Chari river, on the Chad-Cameroon border, at 04:56 on 23 April as it approached N’Djamena following a humanitarian aid flight from Tripoli via Sebha in Libya (pictured below).

All six Ukrainian crew members, the only occupants, were killed. They were all employees of KSAMC. KSAMC, which is to send a delegation to the crash scene tomorrow, says that the aircraft was being used by the Libyan Government for transport of passengers and cargo.

Loss of the An-74 is the latest in a series of setbacks for the Ukrainian manufacturer. Several senior personnel connected with the Antonov An-140 programme were killed in a fatal accident involving the type in December 2002, and the company has recently been having to assist with investigations into a second An-140 crash last December in Azerbaijan.