Congo's transport minister has been fired for incompetence after a deadly plane crash Thursday left at least 37 people dead. A presidential spokesman, Kudura Kasongo, said on television that Remy Henry Kuseyo Gatanga did not reform the disastrous Congolese aviation sector.

An Antonov AN-26 aircraft belonging to the Congolese airline Africa One, crashed on Thursday morning in the Kingasani neighborhood of Kinshasa, near Ndili airport in Congo. The plane apparently went down into a crowded market and houses before catching fire and killing 37 people. Only one person on board the flight, the mechanic, escaped the crash alive.

It appears that shortly after take-off, the Antonov AN-26 plane experienced technical problems and began dumping fuel before establishing radio contact with the airport's tower. Dumping fuel is a common measure if a plane needs to land immediately after take-off, because the plane is too heavy to land if it's filled with fuel. However, shortly after it contacted the air traffic controllers at the airport, the AN-26 plunged down.

At least 10 people suffered severe burns. The neighborhood was inhabited by very poor people. Some reports state that more than 21 people are hospitalized, and at least four houses have been set on fire.

In Congo here have been at least 24 plane crashes since last year, of which many involved Antonovs, which are apparently poorly maintained in the African country. Also, Africa One is on an EU list of airlines banned in Europe because of safety concerns.

Probably the worst Congolese accident was the one in 1996, when 300 people were killed after an Antonov AN-32 crashed after take-off from Kinshasa's main airport and plowed into a crowded open-air market. "Unfortunately they have so many old planes flying that almost every week we have a catastrophe in Congo," said Wolde Gabriel Saugeron, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kinshasa. The African Airlines Association, reports that Congo has accounted for well over half of all the air crashes in Africa over the last decade.

The Antonov An-26 (NATO reporting name: "Curl") was introduced in 1969. They have also been produced in China under licence.