The Precision Air company plane was on its way from the big city of Dar-es-Salaam to Bukoba, through the city of Mwanza, writes Broadcasting company of Tanzania.
The plane crashed as it was about to land in Bukoba, just after 08:30 on Sunday morning.
– The plane crashed into the water about 100 meters from the airport, local police chief William Mwampaghale told the press shortly after the crash, AFP writes.
Photos and videos show people approaching the wreck and small boats rescuing people. Rescuers tried to lift the plane with ropes and cranes.
43 people on board
It was not confirmed how many passengers were on board or if there were any deaths. The Tanzanian newspaper The citizen writes that on board the plane there were 43 people.
The newspaper writes that 39 of these were to be passengers, two flight attendants and two pilots, according to local authorities. 26 of these must have been saved so far.
– We managed to save quite a large number of people, says regional police chief William Mwampaghale.
The injured were transported to Bukoba regional hospital, according to regional director Albert Chalamila TB.
An ATR 42-300, the same model that crashed in Tanzania, photographed in Indonesia in 2015. In the same year, an ATR 42-300 plane crashed in the jungle of the Indonesian part of Papua New Guinea, killing 54 people.
Photo: BIMA SAKTI / AFP
Medium-sized propeller plane
According to the website Flight statistics the medium-sized propeller plane was to have been produced by the Italian-French company ATR, of the type ATR 42-300.
According to TBC, there were heavy rains and strong winds. A witness informs the channel that relief is underway.
Precision Air is a private airline from Tanzania, headquartered in Dar-es-Salaam. Lake Victoria is located in East Africa, between Uganda to the north, Kenya to the east and Tanzania to the south.
The incident in Bukoba comes five years after eleven people lost their lives when a plane from the travel company Coastal Aviation crashed in northern Tanzania.
