Search resumes for missing Kenya Airways jet
Yaounde, May 6: Teams of rescuers and villagers combed thick tropical forest in southern Cameroon today for the wreckage of a Kenya Airways passenger plane which crashed after takeoff in the central African country, officials said.
The Boeing 737-800 aircraft, which was carrying 114 people from more than 20 countries, went missing yesterday after leaving Douala airport bound for Nairobi in torrential rain. It was reported to have come down in thick jungle.
Military helicopters backed up by villagers on motorbikes fruitlessly searched a swathe of the forest-covered terrain, centered roughly 100 km southwest of the capital Yaounde yesterday.
But they failed to locate the plane, which initially set off from Ivory Coast, before darkness and heavy rain forced the hunt to be called off for the night.
Kenya Airways Group Managing Director Titus Naikuni told a press conference in Nairobi today the search was resuming with two extra helicopters.
A signal from the plane's emergency locator beacon that had been picked up on Saturday was lost, he said, raising fears the machine's battery may run out.
''The equipment is only able to transmit information for 48 hours,'' he said. ''The signal is not being received right now.'' A Kenyan search team led by Transport Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere to help the Cameroonian authorities arrived in the west African country late yesterday.
He was due to meet with the governor responsible for area where the search was concentrated, government spokesman Alfred Mutua told the press conference.
Radar-equipped helicopters, including one sent by the French military from a base in Gabon, were focusing on an area between three or four towns, a French diplomat in Cameroon said.
The United States was providing satellite imagery to help in the search, and Mutua said other governments would pitch in.
''We expect to get more assistance from the French, American and British governments,'' Mutua said, adding it was the responsibility of Cameroon to make the request.
Cameroonian Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni set up a crisis committee to coordinate search and rescue efforts, a communique broadcast on state media said.
Late yesterday state television in Cameroon showed hundreds of people gathering sombrely outside the Kenya Airways office in Douala and at the city's airport, many clutching radios or telephones to their ears, and some weeping.
Many in the Kenyan capital Nairobi joined special Sunday prayer services for the missing.
The aircraft, which was only six months old, was carrying 105 passengers and nine crew, the bulk of them African with others from China, India, Europe and elsewhere.
Kenya Airways said the Douala control tower had received a last message from the aircraft right after takeoff. It had been due to land in Nairobi at 6:15 am (0845 hrs IST) yesterday.
Kenya Airways has three 737-800s in its fleet and Naikuni said they had not decided whether to ground the others.
REUTERS
Related Stories
Rescuers
comb
jungle
for
Kenya
Airways
wreckage
15
Indians
were
on
Kenyan
plane;
Helpline
number