An airliner with 43 people on board crashed on Sunday (November 6th) in Lake Victoria, Tanzania, due to bad weather, shortly before landing in the town of Bukoba, in the north-west of the country, have Tanzanian authorities said, adding that rescue operations were underway.

"There was an accident of a plane from (the airline) Precision Air which (...) crashed into the water about 100 meters from the airport", said the police commander regional William Mwampaghale to journalists at Bukoba airport.

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Regional Commissioner Albert Chalamila said 43 people, including 39 passengers, the two pilots and two crew members, were on board the flight from Dar es Salaam, the economic capital, to Bukoba, a town on the of the lake, the largest in Africa and the one where the Nile has its source.

"As we speak, we have managed to save 26 people who have been evacuated to a hospital", added Albert Chalamila, stressing that "the rescue operation is still in progress".

According to him, the plane in question is an ATR 42. This model is manufactured by the Franco-Italian company ATR and assembled in Toulouse in the south of France.

Videos released to local media show the plane largely submerged as rescuers in the water attempt to pick up survivors.

Rescuers attempt to lift the plane out of the water using cables and cranes.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan expressed her condolences to those affected by the accident.

"Let's keep calm as the rescue operations continue and pray for God to help us," she said on Twitter.

Precision Air, which is Tanzania's largest private airline, released a brief statement confirming the accident.

The company, which is part-owned by Kenya Airways, was founded in 1993 and operates domestic and regional flights as well as private charters to popular tourist destinations such as the Serengeti National Park and the Zanzibar Archipelago.

Its fleet consists of nine aircraft, including 3 ATR 42-500s, 1 ATR 42-600 and 5 ATR 72-500s.

It is not known which of the ATR 42s crashed.

With AFP

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