At least 33 killed in Sudanese airliner blaze (UPDATED)

At least 171 passengers were able to escape the burning Sudan Airways plane and survived, while 14 others were still missing, Civil Aviation Authority Spokesman Abdel Hafiz Abdel Rahim said. Â

He said the aviation authority was hoping that those listed as missing had left the airport in the confusion after the blaze and gone straight home without informing authorities.

The nationalities of the dead were not immediately known but diplomats who have examined the manifest said that almost all the names appeared to be Arabic. Airport officials said they thought the vast majority were Sudanese.

"Whether (the fire was due to) a technical reason we don't know yet," airport director Yusuf Ibrahim told Sudanese TV.

"The plane was coming from Amman and Syria ... It landed safely at Khartoum airport and they talked to the control tower which told them where to taxi. At this moment an explosion happened," he said.

Sudan's aviation authority said a 12-strong team was investigating the cause of the fire and would search for the "black box" flight data recorder of the Airbus A310.

Airbus said it was sending a team of five experts from its Toulouse headquarters to Sudan and pledged to help the Sudanese authorities in the investigation.

Sudan's Minister of State for Transport Mabrouk Mubarak Salim said there was an explosion in the airliner's right wing engine area. "So far we don't have precise information but we think the weather is a main reason for what happened," he said.

A dust storm and heavy rain hit the airport on Tuesday and the plane was initially diverted to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

COMBING THROUGH WRECKAGE

Sudanese television showed emergency workers using hoses to spray water on the burning fuselage. On Wednesday, a spark triggered a fresh explosion that injured several workers as they were cutting into the body of the charred plane.

One passenger said the plane had tried to land at Khartoum airport on Tuesday night "but then the captain told us we couldn't land because of bad weather."

He said the plane then flew to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan before returning to Khartoum an hour later.

"When (the pilot) tried to land there was a crash," the passenger told Sudan Television.

Another survivor, Al Haj Bashir, said the landing in Khartoum was "not normal" and that there was "an explosion in the right wing" two or three minutes after the plane landed.

At its height the fire appeared to be consuming the fuselage and cockpit area. The emergency crews eventually managed to extinguish the blaze.

Television pictures showed emergency escape chutes at the side of the blazing aircraft and ambulances on the tarmac.

The civil aviation authorities said all but one of the crew had been found alive.

Five years ago, a Sudan Airways Boeing 737 crashed shortly after takeoff near Port Sudan, killing 104 passengers and the crew of 11.

Photo: Reuters