A Brazil-made brand-new Mozambique Airlines passenger aircraft crashed into remote lush forests in northern Namibia, killing 27 passengers and 6 crew on board, authorities of the both countries confirmed Saturday. (Source: Video grab from Namibia Broadcasting Corporation)

 
A Brazil-made brand-new Mozambique Airlines passenger aircraft crashed into remote lush forests in northern Namibia, killing 27 passengers and 6 crew on board, authorities of the both countries confirmed Saturday.

The toll is slightly different from the information given by Namibian investigators, who said there were 34 people on board the plane when it crashed on Friday afternoon and that there was no sign of survivors.

In a bulletin, state-owned Mozambique Airlines (LAM) said it confirmed the "tragic loss" of flight TM470 with "great sadness and regret". But it did not have any information on the circumstances how the Embraer-190 jet en route to Luanda crashed. It left Maputo at 0926 GMT and was scheduled to arrive at the Angolan capital at 1310 GMT.

According to LAM, the aircraft, designed to carry maximum 93 people, was manufactured in 2012 and went into service only on Nov. 17, 2012. A team from the manufacture Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica S.A. will assist in determine the cause of the crash.

Mozambique's Minister of Transportation and Communications Gabriel Muthisse told a Saturday press conference in Maputo that sources from the Botswana side heard the explosion and saw thick smoke rising from a national park in Namibia's Zambezi region at about 3 p.m. local time Friday. Namibian Air Forces immediately dispatched a search team into the remote jungle battling heavy rain and only managed to find the wreckage Saturday.

"Today we got the information that the plane crashed , no survivors ," the minister said.

He said a trans-national commission has been set up to probe the cause and is expected to submit its report within 30 days according to the rules of International Civil Aviation Organization.

The minister also said the government had decided to declare national mourning soon.

"In the name of the government of Mozambique we want to express our condolences to the affected families for this sad incident," he said.

According to the initial passenger information released by the airline, the victims include a Chinese national, a French, a Brazilian, five Portuguese, nine Angolans and 10 Mozambicans. Families of some passengers waited hours at Maputo International Airport Saturday only to learn the sad ending.

"We contacted them soon after hearing the information but we were told to wait because there is still no confirmation. The whole family now is devastated," said Jose Luis who lost four relatives in the crash.

Meanwhile, Chinese Ambassador to Mozambique Li Chunhua told Xinhua that the Chinese victim was a 30-year-old businessman who came from Angola to Mozambique recently for business opportunities with friends.

Li said the victims' family in China had been informed.

The crash, though the first major accident since the inception of Mozambique Airlines in 1980, underscored the safety concerns cast over the state-own company by the European Union, which bans all aircraft of Mozambican airlines from flying into the European airspace.

Despite the ban, LAM has been able to expand its international routes -- now to five African countries include South Africa, Tanzania, Angola, Zimbabwe and Kenya -- and rebuild its reputation through improved service and attractively low fares.

For LAM's Harare-Maputo route, for example, the airline offers 150 U. S. dollars for a return ticket before taxes.

LAM uses Brazilian-made aircraft for almost all of its regional flights.

The transport minister was quick to defend the state airline at Saturday's press conference.

"I never heard nowhere indication that the aircraft of the Republic of Mozambique are not safe ," said Muthisse. "There is much more developed countries that have also had accidents of this nature."

Around the world, there are about a dozen major aviation accidents recorded this year. The worst crash was South Korea's Asiana Airline, whose jumbo Boeing 777 aircraft undershot the runway on landing at San Francisco International Airport on July 6, killing more than 300 people on board.

Of late, a Lao Airlines' ATR-72 aircraft crashed shortly before landing, killing all 49 people on board in October while a Tatarstan Airline's Boeing 737 crashed in November in Kazan International Airport in Russia, killing 50 people.