A Cessna aircraft crashed Monday in South Sudan’s killing all 13 passengers and the pilot, the civil aviation authority said.
The plane crashed and burst into flames in poor weather on the outskirts of South Sudan’s capital, Juba. Preliminary reports indicate that the plane arriving from Yei town may have crashed due to weather conditions that caused poor visibility. The civil aviation authority said the dead included two Kenyans, and the rest were South Sudanese.
The authority said a team was dispatched to the site about 12 miles outside Juba. The Cessna 208 Caravan, which was operated by CityLink Aviation, lost communication while flying from Yei to Juba International Airport.
Air traffic control is understood to have lost contact with the plane after 30 minutes into the journey which would have been a distance of around 80 miles.
The authority said a team was dispatched to the site about 12 miles outside Juba. The Cessna 208 Caravan, which was operated by CityLink Aviation, lost communication while flying from Yei to Juba International Airport.
Air traffic control is understood to have lost contact with the plane after 30 minutes into the journey which would have been a distance of around 80 miles. Videos of the crash site shared on social media showed remains of the aircraft in flames.
The aviation authority also said a team has been sent to the site to gather information and support emergency services.
As reported by the BBC, more than 55 planes crashed in the country, resulting in dozens of fatalities, in the decade following independence in 2011. In January 2025, 20 oil workers died after their aircraft, which was headed for Juba, came down three minutes after take-off near the oil fields of Unity state in the north.
The worst plane crash occurred in November 2015, when an Antonov plane crashed near Juba airport, killing 41 people, the BBC also wrote.
