At least two-hundred-57 people on board an Algerian military plane have been killed after it crashed near Algiers on Wednesday.<br />The incident has raised fresh questions over the North African country's shaky aviation safety record.<br />Ro Aram reports. <br /> The plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Boufarik air base, located west of Algiers, and witnesses say they saw a wing catch fire shortly after the aircraft took off.<br />It was heading to Tindouf on the border with Western Sahara. <br />Most of the dead were military personnel and their families, as well as Western Saharan refugees.<br />The dead also included 26 members of the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed group fighting for the independence of neighboring Western Sahara, a territory also claimed by Morocco in a long-running dispute.<br /> Wednesday's crash is said to be the deadliest in the world since 2014 when 298 people on board a Malaysian Airlines flight died after it was shot down over eastern Ukraine.<br />An investigation has been launched and it is not yet clear whether the cause was due to safety or mechanical problems, pilot error or interference.<br />The government has also declared three days of national mourning.<br /> Questions have been raised over Algeria's aviation safety, which has come under scrutiny in recent years for numerous crashes involving military and commercial aircrafts. <br />The latest plane crash happened four years ago when an Air Algerie flight crashed in northern Mali, killing 116 passengers and crew.<br /> That same year, 77 people on board a military plan died in a mountainous area in eastern Algeria. <br />Ro Aram, Arirang News. <br />
