Plane Carrying 115 People Crashes – Cameroon – Kenya Airways
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1264276,00.html
Plane Carrying 115 People Crashes
Updated: 09:57, Saturday May 05, 2007
A passenger jet carrying 115 people has crashed in Cameroon, according to an aviation official.
Kenya Airways lost contact with the plane shortly after takeoff and a search operation was launched.
A Kenya Airways jet crashed in 2000 killing 169 peopleAir traffic controllers picked up a distress signal from the aircraft before contact was lost.
The flight originally began in Ivory Coast but stopped in Douala – Cameroon’s largest city – to pick up more passengers en route to the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
The 737-800 was carrying 106 passengers, eight crew members and a flight engineer.
The plane is the latest generation of 737 capable of carrying 189 passengers and has long-range capability.
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Kenya Airways boss Titus Naikuni said: “The last message was received in Douala after takeoff and thereafter the tower was unable to contact the plane.
The airline has opened a crisis management centre near the airport.
Relatives of those on the plane have been instructed to go to a nearby hotel where they will be provided information as it becomes available.
The last crash of an international Kenya Airways flight was in January 2000, when a flight from Ivory Coast to Nairobi went down, killing 169 people.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6627485.stm
A Kenya Airways plane with 115 people on board has crashed in southern Cameroon, near the town of Niete, Cameroon state radio reports.
The flight, which originated in Ivory Coast, was reported missing on Saturday after it failed to arrive in Nairobi.
There is no confirmation of the crash from Kenya and no reports on the fate of the passengers.
Kenya’s national carrier has a good safety record. However, 169 people died when one of its planes crashed in 2000.
Connecting passengers
Kenya Airways says the last message was received by the control tower in Douala, Cameroon, soon after take-off.
The airline says there were 106 passengers and nine crew on board the Boeing 737-800 plane.
It is not clear what the nationalities of the passengers are but it is thought many were connecting through Nairobi to other destinations.
The Kenya Airways website says the fleet is 23 strong but only one of the planes is a 737-800. It is 26%-owned by Air France KLM’s Dutch company KLM.
In January 2000 a Kenya Airways plane crashed into the sea after taking off from Abidjan airport in Ivory Coast killing 169 people. There were 10 survivors.
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