Topic: 9 Peacekeepers Die In Plane Crash

New York Times
May 7, 2007
Pg. 6


EL NAKHL, Egypt, May 6 (AP) — A plane carrying foreign peacekeepers across the Sinai desert crashed Sunday near a highway where it had tried to make an emergency landing, killing eight French soldiers and a Canadian, officials said.
Capt. Mohammed Badr, a police officer in Sinai, said the plane went down 50 miles from the nearest major town, El Nakhl.
It appeared that the Canadian-made DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter tried to land on the mountain highway but clipped a truck and crashed nearby, said Normand St. Pierre, a spokesman for the Multinational Force and Observers, an independent force created by Egypt and Israel to monitor their border in the Sinai after a 1979 peace deal.
The crash killed more than half of the 15-member French contingent and destroyed the mission’s sole fixed-wing aircraft, Mr. St. Pierre said. The aircraft was on a training mission and carried a “higher than normal” load of passengers and crew members. The truck driver was not harmed.