Congolese fighter jet crashes during display

KINSHASA, June 30 (Reuters) A Congolese air force fighter plane crashed during an Independence Day display today, killing the pilot, and the president's convoy crushed a girl to death, UN officials and media said today.

The Sukhoi Su-25, a Soviet-designed single-seat fighter, had been flying in formation above a parade attended by President Joseph Kabila in the northeastern city of Kisangani before it lost control while coming in to land.

''When the plane took off, it was reported it had problems with one of its engines,'' Major Gabriel De Brosses, military spokesman for the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, told Reuters.

''It crashed at 11:56 local time 1506 IST next to the runway in Kisangani, probably due to an engine malfunction just after the ceremony. The pilot was killed.'' No one else was known to have been hurt.

It was the second Su-25 Congo had lost in less than a year, further weakening an air force with just a handful of jets and attack helicopters. One disappeared during a routine rebasing operation in December, although no wreckage was ever found.

A vehicle in Kabila's convoy crushed a girl to death on the way to another ceremony in Kisangani, UN-supported Radio Okapi reported.

The radio also said a Congolese army truck carrying troops back from Independence Day celebrations in the town of Kalemie, eastern Congo, crashed into the wall of a UN peacekeeping base, killing one of the soldiers on board and wounding three.

The vast mineral-rich central African nation is emerging from decades of mismanagement and a 1998-2003 war that cost an estimated 5 million lives, mainly through hunger and disease.

Security problems persist despite a UN-backed peace process capped by polls last year, in which Kabila became the country's first democratically elected leader in more than four decades.

In an Independence Day address, Kabila said he was committed to pacifying Congo's eastern Kivu provinces, where fighting between Rwandan Hutu rebels and Tutsi-dominated Congolese army brigades has raised fears of a return to war.

''No option will be neglected in order to bring peace back to the east of the country,'' he said in a pre-recorded address broadcast today on state-owned television.

Today's celebrations commemorated the 47th anniversary of Congo's independence from Belgium.

Reuters KK VP0038