Cargo plane shreds bus, passengers into pieces

A number of people have died after an Allied Air cargo plane skidded off the runway at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra Saturday evening and ran into a 207 Benz bus on a nearby road and shredded it and its passengers into pieces.

The plane crashed through metal railings and a concrete wall at the airport before sweeping the commercial bus off the 37 Military Hospital – Burma Camp road at the El Wak Stadium and ended up at the Hajj Village.

It is unclear how many people died but eyewitnesses say no one on the 23-seater bus travelling from the Spintex Road to Burma Camp survived. Occupants of a taxi escaped death narrowly as the wing of the out of control 5N-BJN flight whipped it off the road and dragged it along its way for some distance.

The disaster has seen the temporary closure of the busy road as joint operations by several security agencies including the Police, Military, Fire Service, FBI and the National Disaster Management Organisation sweep off dismembered human parts and to secure the immediate environs of the crash.

It has been raining all evening in Accra a passenger aboard a Turkish Airline that landed shortly before the ill-fated Allied Air cargo plane told Myjoyonline.com they had an unpleasant landing as the pilot struggled to bring the plane to a stop as a result of the runway rendered slippery by the rains.