Boeing 737 crashes during take-off in Senegal

A Boeing 737-300 aircraft has crashed during take-off in Senegal, injuring 11 people, four of them severely.

Air Senegal flight HC 301 bound for the Malian capital Bamako went off the runway in the early hours of Thursday, Dakar’s Blaise Diagne airport said in a statement.

The pilot was slightly injured, but most of the 78 passengers on board were not hurt in the incident.

Operations have since been halted at the airport.

Emergency services at the airport have been mobilised to evacuate passengers, the airport’s statement said.

An inquiry is under way to determine the causes of the incident, which took place at around 0100 GMT.

Boeing has not commented on the incident, nor has Transair, the private company from which Air Senegal chartered the plane.

Though it is not yet known what caused the crash, it comes as the manufacturer faces a deepening crisis over its safety record.

An unused door blew out of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max in January shortly after take-off in the US.

The company is facing a criminal investigation into that incident.

The Senegal crash comes as a former quality inspector at Boeing’s largest supplier told the BBC that plane bodies regularly left the factory with serious defects.

The company, Spirit AeroSystems, said it “strongly disagreed” with the allegations.