A French military aircraft believed to be laden with armour, en-route to Zambia, crash-landed at the Masvingo Airport on Saturday night after developing a technical fault, NewsDay established.

By Tatenda Chitagu

The 10 military personnel from France — including one woman — aboard the flight, were not injured after one of the aircraft’s engines and a gearbox developed faults. They had to spend the night holed up in Masvingo before engineers, who were aboard the plane, fixed the problem and they proceeded to Harare at around 11am.

Military sources said the plane was cleared to use Zimbabwe’s airspace. The captain of the plane, whose name could not be established, also had a diplomatic passport.