The wreckage of the "Precision Air" plane has been recovered from Lake Victoria after it crashed on Sunday before landing in the northwestern city of Bukoba, authorities in Tanzania announced on Tuesday.
Nineteen of the 43 people on board the plane were killed. The disaster is among the deadliest plane crashes in the history of the East African country.
"We have taken the plane completely out of the water and the cause of the crash is currently under investigation," the Tanzania Airports Authority said in a statement."Bukoba airport will soon reopen to allow flight operations to resume as usual," she added .
Videos published by local media showed the wreckage of the plane being towed by a crane, with its nose pointing towards the ground, before it was lowered onto the grass.
Precision Air, the largest private airline in Tanzania, announced that the plane was an ATR-42 made by the French-Italian company ATR, headquartered in Toulouse, with 43 people on board, including 39 passengers, including a baby, and four people. the crew. 24 people survived the accident.
Government spokesman Gerson Msegwa confirmed to reporters in Bukoba that a Kenyan and a Briton were among the victims.
"We are in contact with the relevant embassies to transfer the bodies," he said.
He added that ATR investigators went to Tanzania to join their counterparts from Precision Air and the Tanzania Airports Authority, who launched the investigation.
On Monday, Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassem Majaliwa and several ministers attended a prayer ceremony led by Muslim and Christian clerics at the Kaitaba stadium in Bukoba, before the bodies of the victims were handed over to their families.
Precision Airlines, a part of Kenya Airways, was established in 1993 and operates domestic and regional flights and offers a private charter service to popular tourist areas such as the Serengeti National Park and the Zanzibar Archipelago.
The accident comes five years after 11 people were killed in the northern crash of a Coastal Aviation safari company in Tanzania.
Plane wreckage recovered from Lake Victoria in Tanzania
