Six dead, pilot hurt in Papua New Guinea plane crash

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Six people, including two children, died and an Australian pilot was seriously injured after a light plane crashed in Papua New Guinea, an official said today.

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The Cessna 185 went down at a remote airstrip in a mountainous region of the South Pacific nation yesterday after making a distress call, a senior civil aviation official told AFP.

"A light airplane crashed on an airstrip in the Morobe area. Six people didn't survive," said Wilson Sagati, acting chief executive of PNG's Civil Aviation Authority. "The pilot survived and has been evacuated to Cairns." Reports said the plane suffered an engine fire before the crash, naming the pilot as 68-year-old Richard Leahy of Kiunga Aviation. They said the six dead, all PNG residents, included two children.

Sagati added that the pilot, the sole survivor, was picked up by a passing helicopter at the isolated airstrip. "The pilot made a distress call but did not give the nature of the distress call," Sagati said, adding the crash was under investigation.

"The circumstances are unknown at this stage." Radio New Zealand quoted Leahy's son as saying the pilot was being treated in an Australian hospital for serious burns and a spinal fracture.