Dozens dead in DRC air crash

At least 46 people died when an aircraft crashed as it attempted to land in rain in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the air company said.

The commercial jet, operated by Hewa Bora Airways and carrying 118 passengers and crew, crashed at Kisangani airport in the northeast.

"We have recovered 44 bodies and there were two injured who died in hospital, bringing the number of dead to 46," Hewa Bora president Stavros Papaioannou said.

The company head said the crew of the Boeing 727 were among those killed but that 53 people had survived.

There was no word on the fate of the other 19 people on board.

"They arrived at Kisangani, there was bad weather, they tried to land without reaching the runway," he said, adding that heavy rains had hampered the rescue operation.

The jet was on its regular route from Kinshasa to Kisangani and Goma when it was hit by the storm as it approached the airport, Lambert Mende, a spokesman for the local administration, said.

Black smoke could be seen at the end of the runway, a journalist reported. But flights, which had been suspended after the crash, resumed a short time later.