The United States has offered to assist Kenya with satellite
information to help identify the international route used by a
missing Kenyan airliner in southern Cameroon, a senior Kenyan
official said on Saturday.
Kenyan Transport Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere said before
departing for Douala, Cameroon, that the US government was
assisting in the search with satellite images taken over the
expected flight path.
The minister said Kenyan authorities were doing everything
possible to locate the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, which the
airline acquired just six months before the crash.
"We are doing everything possible to identify the location on
which the plane went missing. The American government has offered
to assist us with satellite information to identify the
international air route used by the plane," Mwakwere told
journalists.?
Kenya Airways, Africa's second-largest carrier, said a
six-month-old Boeing 737-800 passenger jet with 114 people on board
went missing early Saturday after taking off from Douala, Cameroon,
on a flight to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Mwakwere, who is leading a team of Kenya Airways and government
officials to Douala, said it was too early to determine what had
happened to the plane.
"We need to get information from the technical experts as to
whether it was occasioned by the weather or pilot error or
mechanical fault," he told journalists in Nairobi.
Kenya Airways said the last communication with the missing plane
was received by the control tower in Douala, on Cameroon's coast,
shortly after takeoff.
Cameroonian radio initially said the plane came down near Niete,
south along the coast from Douala, although later reports suggested
the crash had happened further inland.
"The search location has now been centered around 100 km,
south-west of Yaounde (Cameroon's capital)," Kenyan Airways Chief
Executive Officer Titus Naikuni told a news conference.
He said an extensive search of the area by low-flying aircraft
had found nothing, and a second search team was on its way to the
site.
Naikuni said the search and rescue operation was proving to be
difficult because it was taking place in the heavy-wooded
terrain.
Naikuni spoke as the opposition leadership in the East African
nation called on authorities to review their aviation link with
West Africa, saying the national carrier had recorded too many
crises on the Abidjan route within the last seven years.
Although the airline is thought to have a good safety record,
this weekend's crash is not the first for the firm.
In 2000, one of its fleet crashed into the ocean after taking
off from Abidjan of Cote d'Ivoire, on its way to Nairobi, killing
at least 169 people onboard.
Former foreign minister Kalonzo Musyoka asked Nairobi to
reconsider its stand on the bilateral air services charter signed
with West Africa, saying the continued occurrence of air disasters
in the region pointed at the lack of aviation gears.
While assuring the families and relatives of the ill-fated
aircraft of government support, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said
his government is in close touch with the authorities in Cameroon
to try and ascertain the fate of the missing Kenya Airways
plane.
In a statement, issued in Nairobi, Kibaki assured all that the
government has put in motion a mechanism to help establish the
status of the Kenya Airways plane.
He pointed out that he has followed the reports of the
circumstances surrounding the missing Kenya Airways plane that was
destined for Nairobi from Douala, Cameroon with concern.
The president stated that his government fully shares the
anxieties of the families and friends of the passengers and crew
members who were traveling on the plane.
The airline has contacted the families of the passengers but
those, who flocked an emergency center set up in Nairobi, blamed
the airline for not providing adequate information on the air
disaster.
Kenya Airways, one of Africa's few profitable carriers, set up a
crisis center to monitor events and a passenger information center
at a hotel in Nairobi.
Five Britons were among the passengers, including Anthony
Mitchell, a well-known Associated Press journalist based in
Nairobi.?
(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2007)
