Five Finnish tourists and three British tourists are receiving hospital treatments in Dar es Salaam after the light plane they were traveling in crash-landed in Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve.

 

Local English newspaper Sunday News quoted Tanzanian Tourism Minister Jumanne Magembe as saying that all the hospitalized foreign tourists were doing well.

 

The Finnish nationals were identified as Jari Puhakka, Joonas Puhakka, Aada Puhakka, Juulia Korpihalla and Arja Harti Kainene, and the British nationals were identified as Bob Thomson, Patrick Thomson and Ella Thomson.

 

The tourism minister, who went to hospital to visit those hospitalized on Saturday, identified the only victim of the plane crash as Margit Helena Laukk Thomson from Finland.

 

The crash victim was previously identified as an Irish national by the Tanzania Aviation Authority.

 

The light plane, a Piper belonging to the DJB Air Charter Company, missed the runway and hit trees at the Matambwe Airdrome inside the Selous Game Reserve midday on Friday.

 

The plane was carrying nine tourists, a lodge manager and a pilot. The lodge manager David Guthrie and the pilot Mohammed Suleiman Mbarouk were already discharged from hospital after treatment.

 

This was the second light plane crash within 20 days in Tanzania.

 

A Cesna 310R crash on Dec. 16 last year killed four of the six on board in southern Tanzania. All aboard the ill-fated light plane were Tanzanians.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 8, 2007)