A small passenger plane crashed in South Sudan on Monday, killing all 14 people on board, the country’s civil aviation authority said.
The Cessna 208 Caravan, operated by CityLink Aviation Ltd, took off from Yei at 09:15 local time bound for the capital Juba. Authorities lost contact about 30 minutes into the flight, and the aircraft came down roughly 20 kilometres south-west of Juba.
The South Sudan Civil Aviation Authority said initial indications point to “adverse weather conditions, particularly low visibility” as a likely cause, and a team has been dispatched to the crash site for further investigation.
Twelve of those killed were South Sudanese and two were Kenyan, the authority said. The pilot was among the 14 fatalities.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, has a poorly developed transport network and an aviation industry with a weak safety record. More than 55 plane crashes in the decade following independence in 2011 caused dozens of fatalities, attributed variously to ageing aircraft, weak regulatory compliance, overloading, poor weather and pilot error. In January 2025, 20 oil workers died after their plane went down minutes after take-off near the oil fields of Unity state.
The country’s worst aviation disaster came in November 2015, when an Antonov plane crashed near Juba airport, killing 41 people. Sri Lanka has followed African aviation safety news closely after a Somali piracy incident involving a Sri Lankan crew member drew attention to maritime and aviation risks in the region.
