More than 250 people killed as military plane crashes in Algeria

At least 257 people have been killed after an Algerian military plane crashed near the capital Algiers this morning, according to state media.

A statement by Algeria’s Defence Ministry said that an investigation had been launched into the cause of the crash. Ten crew members and 247 passengers died, the statement added.

The plane came down in farmland close to the Boufarik air base, southwest of Algiers. It remains unclear whether there are any survivors.

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“Dozens of bodies were seen in numbered bags as paramedics and firefighters worked at the crash site,” CNN reports. “Cranes at the site have begun trying to move some of the debris.”

The plane, a Soviet-designed Ilyushin Il-76, was heading to Bechar, in the southwest of the country.

According to the BBC, the incident is the deadliest plane crash since July 2014, when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Algeria has experienced several other air disasters in recent years.

In February 2014, 77 people died when a military Hercules C-130 plane carrying army personnel and their families crashed.

That same year, an Air Algerie flight from Burkina Faso to Algiers crashed in northern Mali, killing all 116 people on board.