{"id":8251,"date":"2014-04-14T12:47:13","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T16:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=8251"},"modified":"2014-04-14T14:01:20","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T18:01:20","slug":"tanzania-vp-survives-helicopter-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/8251","title":{"rendered":"Tanzania’s VP survives helicopter crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Vice President of Tanzania, Gharib Bilal, and several other top officials escaped unhurt after a helicopter they were in crashed into a wall as it took off on Sunday morning at the Julius Nyerere International Airport, Dar es Salaam.<\/p>\n

Airport Police Commandant, Commissioner Khamis Selemani told the press<\/a> that the accident was caused by a technical problem.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, officials have disclosed that an investigation has been opened into the incident.<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that Minister of Works, John Pombe Mugufuli, Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner, Mecky Sadick and Special Police Zone Commander, Suleiman Kova, as well as 3 journalists and an aide of the VP were also in the aircraft when the incident occurred.<\/p>\n

General Davis Mwamuyange, chief of Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF), disclosed to The Citizen<\/a> that the officials were about to go on a tour of flood-hit areas of the capital and coast.<\/p>\n

He further noted that the Augusta Bell 412 helicopter was supposed to be in good shape and had undergone safety tests before the fateful flight.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Eric Komba, spokesman for TPDF, has revealed<\/a> that the deputy leader and his entourage “went on the trip as scheduled” in a different helicopter.<\/p>\n

Tanzania has been hit with heavy torrential rains<\/a> since last week which has left over 10 people dead, 100’s displaced and led to the destruction of properties worth several thousands of Shillings.<\/p>\n

Photo\/Jamiiforums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Vice President of Tanzania, Gharib Bilal, and several other top officials escaped unhurt after a helicopter they were in crashed into a wall as it took off on Sunday morning at the Julius Nyerere International Airport, Dar es Salaam.…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,1],"tags":[2527,2533,2529,2534,2532,2528,2530,4972,2531,2526],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}