AUTRALIA: Plane Crash Into Australian Shopping Mall

A pilot and four American passengers were killed on Tuesday when a small plane crashed in to the roof of a shopping mall after taking off from an airfield outside Melbourne, police said.

The twin-turboprop Beechcraft King Air plane suffered an engine failure and crashed into the mall near the end of the runway at Essendon Airport, Victoria state police assistant commissioner Stephen Leane told reporters in Melbourne.

The pilot managed to send an emergency call, describing a “catastrophic engine failure” before the fiery collision, police said. Witnesses said the plane exploded on impact.

The crash happened at around 9 a.m., about an hour before the mall was due to open and there were no fatalities other than those aboard the aircraft, the witness said.

“All five occupants were male – the pilot was Australian and the four passengers were from the United States of America,” Victoria police said in later statement.

Sky News showed burning wreckage strewn across the mall’s carpark and a thick column of black smoke rising from the crash site.

The plane had been bound for King Island in Bass Strait between the mainland and the southern island state of Tasmania and Australian newspapers reported that at least two of the men were traveling to play golf on the island’s famed links.

A spokeswoman for Airservices Australia said flights in and out of Melbourne’s main airport were unaffected. Essendon Airport, which is used mainly by light aircraft, remained closed.

TANZANIA: Cessna C406 Plane Catches Fire, Tourists Escape

Details remain sketchy over information received about an aircraft accident at the Sasakwa airstrip just outside the Serengeti in Tanzania.

The Cessna C406 is said to have suffered a fire following a failed attempt to take off from the strip and neither the airline nor the Tanzanian accident investigations unit nor the Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority have yet come out to state the exact circumstances.

What was learned though was that several among the five tourists and two pilots on board suffered burns and other serious injuries and were subsequently airlifted by East Africa's Flying Doctors to Nairobi to receive treatment. The evacuation by East Africa's oldest medivac organization used three aircraft, a Cessna Grand Caravan, a PC12 and a King Air, showing the seriousness of the situation the Flying Doctors were faced with.

One source at Nairobi's Wilson Airport has indicated that at least one of the victims was judged to be critically ill though no updates on the patient's condition could be obtained at this stage. The nationality of the tourists and of the two pilots are not known.

The Sasakwa airstrip serves the private Grumeti Game Reserve which adjoins the main Serengeti National Park.