At least 257 dead in Algerian military plane crash near base, officials say

At least 257 people were killed Wednesday when a military plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Algeria, officials said.
Broadcasters showed images of body bags lined up in a field with mangled plane parts visible in the background.
Algeria's defense ministry said in a statement that 247 passengers and 10 crew members were killed, with most of the victims being soldiers and their relatives. It added that the victims' bodies have been transported to the Algerian army's central hospital in the town of Ain Naadja for identification.
Some passengers were "extracted with deep burns caused by the fuselage catching fire," Civil protection agency spokesman Farouk Achour told the Associated Press.

More than 300 emergency workers were reported to be the scene and the cause of the crash remains unclear.
Boufarik air base, the site of the crash, is in northern Algeria and is about 20 miles away from the country's capital of Algiers.
The plane that went down, a Soviet-designed Il-76 model, has been in production since 1970s and has an overall good safety record, according to the Associated Press. It is widely used for both commercial freight and military transport. The Algerian military operates several of the planes.

It was the first crash of an Algerian military plane since February 2014, when a U.S.-built C-130 Hercules turboprop slammed into a mountain, killing at least 76 people and leaving just one survivor.
In 2003, 10 people died when an Algerian Air Force C-130 crashed after an engine caught fire shortly after it took off from the air base near Boufarik, according to the Aviation Safety Network's database.
The previous deadliest crash on Algerian soil occurred in 2003, when 102 people were killed after a civilian airliner crashed at the end of the runway in Tamanrasset. There was a single survivor in that crash.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.