A Soviet-made plane crashed Saturday in central Congo, killing all 22 people aboard, a Congo government spokesman said.  

The Antonov 26 went down just after takeoff at the city of Boende, some 550 miles northeast of the capital, Kinshasa, government spokesman Vital Kamerhe said in Kinshasa.

Kamerhe and other government officials said they did not know whether the aircraft was carrying members of the military or civilians. The aircraft is used for passengers and cargo, according to the Aviation Safety Network Web site.

Hamadoun Toure, a UN spokesman, said the plane was not one of those belonging to Congo's UN military mission, which is overseeing cease-fires and peace deals in the central African nation after a five-year war.

News of the 4 p.m. crash took a few hours to reach the capital. Kamerhe said the government would send a fact-finding team at daylight Sunday to try to determine circumstances of the crash.

The Boende airstrip had no air-traffic control, said Georges Kikuni, a national aviation official in Kinshasa.

It was the second transportation tragedy to hit Congo this week. A boat collision on a west Congo lake killed more than 180 people and left scores more missing.

Congo, a nation the size of Western Europe, has only a few hundred miles of paved roads. Its people and officials depend on boats and planes -- both often dilapidated, and overcrowded -- to move about the country.

(China Daily November 30, 2003)