DUBAI – The pilot of the crashed Sudanese cargo plane in Sharjah attempted to stay away from populated areas as the aircraft was about to go down, UAE daily Gulf News reported citing a witness.

Six Sudanese crew members were killed when the Boeing 707 belonging to Azza Air Transport crashed shortly after taking off from Sharjah International Airport around 3.30 p.m. on Wednesday.

There were no casualties on the ground when the plane came down in a clear area, officials said.
Ramsey Yaseen, a pilot with a commercial airline in Sharjah who was playing golf in a nearby course, said he saw the plane struggling to take off and “thought that he was not going to make it.”

Yaseen believes the pilot deliberately nose-dived the plane into the unpopulated place when he realised he was going to crash.

“I’m almost positive that the pilot decided to take the plane down there … He wanted to prevent the plane from crashing into a populated area,” Yaseen was quoted by Gulf News as saying.

The plane’s Sudanese pilot has been identified as Mohammad Ali, who lived in Sharja.

Source: business.maktoob.com