At least 19 people were killed when a plane operated by Tanzania's Precision Air crash-landed into Lake Victoria on approach to the lakeside city of Bukoba, the country's prime minister said.
"All Tanzanians join you in mourning these 19 people … who have lost their lives," Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa told reporters in Bukoba.
Precision Air, which is Tanzania's largest private airline, released a brief statement confirming the accident earlier.
Video footage broadcast on local media showed the plane largely submerged as rescuers waded through water to bring people to safety.
Emergency workers attempted to lift the aircraft out of the water using ropes, assisted by cranes.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan expressed her condolences to those affected by the accident.
"Let's continue to be calm while the rescue operation continues as we pray to God to help us," she said on Twitter.
Precision Air, which is partly owned by Kenya Airways, was founded in 1993 and operates domestic and regional flights as well as private charters to popular tourist destinations such as the Serengeti National Park and the Zanzibar archipelago.
The accident comes five years after 11 people died when a plane belonging to safari company Coastal Aviation crashed in northern Tanzania.
In March 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines flight from from Addis Ababa to Nairobi plunged six minutes after take-off into a field southeast of the Ethiopian capital, killing all 157 people on board.
In 2007, a Kenya Airways flight from the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan to Kenya's capital Nairobi crashed into a swamp after take-off, killing all 114 passengers.
In 2000 another Kenya Airways flight from Abidjan to Nairobi crashed into the Atlantic Ocean minutes after take-off, killing 169 people while ten survived.
