The Sudanese ambassador to Washington called the weather "very bad" and said the runway was drenched by rain.

The head of Sudanese police, Mohammad Najib, said bad weather "caused the plane to crash land, split into two and catch fire."

"We believe that most of the passengers were able to make it out and escape with their lives," said Najib, without disclosing further details on how they escaped.

But he stressed that officials could not say for sure how many were killed.

The airport was experiencing a thunderstorm and winds about 20 mph at the time of the crash, said Elaine Yang, a meterologist with the San Francisco-based Weather Underground, a private weather service.

A Sudanese airliner burns at Khartoum airport in this image taken off video footage June 10, 2008. The airliner, which was identified by Sudanese television as an Airbus, was carrying 217 people and had burst into flames after landing at Khartoum airport. [Agencies]

Raqeeb Abdel-Latif, head of the Sudan Airways office in Damascus, Syria, said the plane had joined the Sudanese national carrier fleet seven months ago.

It took off from Damascus with 203 passengers on board, mostly Africans and a few non-Sudanese nationals and 14 crew members. It stopped in Amman, where 34 additional passengers came on board.