Plane crashes into Phiippines shanty town killing 12

Updated
Plane crashes into Phiippines shanty town killing 12
Plane crashes into Phiippines shanty town killing 12

AFP/Getty


A cargo plane has crashed into a shanty town in the Philippines after an emergency landing at Manila Airport went wrong.

The crash sparked a fire that has so far killed 12 people, including three children as well as the pilot and co-pilot, and left 20 people injured.

Police chief inspector Enrique Sy said: 'The plane struck one house but the others also went up in flames. These are informal settlers, packed into rows of houses.'

Florencio Bernabe, the mayor of Paranaque district where the crash occurred, said that at least 50 shanties burned down and at least 20 other injured victims had been taken to hospital.

The fire also took over a local primary school, but it was empty because it was a weekend.

Ramon Gutierrez, head of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, told DZBB radio in an interview that the pilot had asked to be allowed to make an emergency landing back at Manila airport shortly after take-off.

'Unfortunately,' he said, 'the plane did not make it.'

Gutierrez added that the cause of the crash was not immediately known, and that the plane would have been carrying a full tank of fuel when it crashed.

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