|
TPDF officer among Kenya Airways flight dead
2007-05-08 09:59:23
By Guardian Reporter and Agencies
A Tanzania People`s Defence Forces officer was among the 114 passengers on board a Kenyan Airways plane that crashed in Cameroon on Saturday, all of whom are feared dead.
A TPDF source said in Dar es Salaam yesterday the female officer had the rank of captain and was flying from Cameroon to Dar es Salaam.
However, the source declined to give any further information on the officer, saying that would be done only after her relatives had been notified on the tragic incident.
``We will give details on the officer tomorrow after we have contacted the relatives,`` the source said, adding that no elaboration would be forthcoming for now.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that rescuers in Cameroon hacked through mangrove thickets with machetes and chain saws yesterday to reach the plane but officials said all 114 on board were dead.
The Boeing 737-800 vanished early on Saturday minutes after leaving Douala for Nairobi in torrential rain.
``The plane crashed into mangrove swamp surrounded by forest and the explosion made a crater, creating a mini-lake filled with water, mud and kerosene, full of clothes and debris,`` said medical doctor Patricia Ngamga, on her way back from the site.
``The nose of the plane plunged into the mud and the tail had blown off and there isn`t any more,`` she said, before being whisked away by soldiers who kept journalists behind a police cordon marked with yellow tape.
Red Cross workers laid down white plastic sheets while some of their colleagues went towards the crash site carrying stretchers, as helicopters and planes buzzed overhead.
``There are no chances that there will be any survivors because almost the entire body of the plane was buried inside the swamp,`` Jean-Pierre Nana, director of Cameroon`s civil protection department, told Reuters.
The plane was found late on Sunday in a mangrove swamp near Mbanga Pongo, around 20 km from Douala airport.
It was finally located after nearly two days of fruitless searches well over 100 km away in southern Cameroon, where radar-equipped helicopters and villagers on motorbikes spent most of the weekend combing tropical forest.
Rescue efforts resumed near the crash site at daybreak when troops and police carrying gas masks and plastic bags gathered at the end of a muddy road and began hacking deep into the waterlogged forest.
Local residents reported grim discoveries in the thick bush. ``I saw one body and one arm,” resident Guiffo Gande told reporters in Mbanga Pongo.
``We also saw some seats and a piece of plane about the size of a car door,`` Gande said, adding that he had not seen the plane’s fuselage, engines or tail.
The crash has again thrown the spotlight on air safety in Africa. It dealt a severe blow to the image of Kenya Airways, one of the most successful and modern companies in the East African nation.
The airline is listed on three East African bourses and is 26 per cent owned by Air France`s AIRF.PA and Dutch arm KLM.
The six-month-old aircraft was carrying 105 passengers and nine crew from 27 nations, mostly African, with others from China, India, Europe and elsewhere.
As soon as the plane disappeared, questions were being asked about why a jet less than a year old would have crashed.
And with rescuers only reaching the crash site nearly two days later, there were also question marks over the speed of the Cameroon authorities` response to the accident.
The flight had originated in Cote d`Ivoire, where a Kenya Airways Airbus A-310 plunged into the sea moments after take-off in January 2000, killing all but 10 of the 179 people on board.
|
