AP
Published: April 1, 1986
A Mozambican Air Force plane crashed and burst into flames on takeoff, killing 44 people, Mozambique's official press agency reported today. The dead included a founder of the rebel movement that successfully fought Portuguese colonial rule.
The crash, the worst such disaster in Mozambique's history, occurred Sunday at the Indian Ocean town of Pemba, the Mozambican News Agency said. Five people survived, but all were seriously injured, the agency said.
The agency, quoting a Government statement, said the dead included Maria Chipande, wife of Defense Minister Gen. Alberto Chipande and a founder of the Mozambique Liberation Front. The guerrilla movement fought Portuguese rule for a decade and became Frelimo, the ruling party, after Mozambique became independent in 1975.
The agency said the cause of the crash appeared to be engine trouble. The plane, a Soviet-made Antonov 26, crashed and burned a few hundred yards from the end of the runway in Pemba, it said.
(New York Times
President Samora M. Machel, leader of Mozambique since it won independence from Portugal in 1975, was killed Sunday night in a plane crash in South Africa, the Pretoria Government announced today. The cause of the crash, on a flight from Lusaka, Zambia, to Maputo, Mozambique, was not known. The Mozambican authorities, who withheld a formal announcement while they debated the succession and other issues, confirmed Mr. Machel's death about 24 hours after the crash. An Anti-Apartheid Figure The 53...)