The wreckage of a small plane was found in central Kenya on Thursday, two days after it went missing in bad weather with 10 people on board, the transport minister said.
A surveillance helicopter spotted the plane belonging to the FlySAX airline near the town of Njabini on the edge of the Aberdares mountain range. There are no survivors.
“The ground search will intensify in the next hour despite poor weather conditions that are posing a challenge,” said Paul Maringa, principal secretary of the transport ministry.
“The wreckage does appear reasonably damaged. But we don’t want to speculate. Let’s be sensitive to families of those who were on board.”
He said medical personnel and a Red Cross team had been sent to the site.
The plane, operated by East African Safari Air Express, took off from the western town of Kitale in the late afternoon Tuesday.
It disappeared off the radar screens at Nairobi international airport, its final destination, around 80 minutes later, the owners said in a statement.
Kenya has been experiencing heavy rains which along with foggy conditions have hampered search efforts.
Investigation ongoing
“Information from teams reaching the crash site is that there are no survivors,” said Charles Wako, chairman of the domestic airline Fly-SAX.
Eight passengers and two pilots were on the flight, operated by a local company FlySax.
According to the ministry of transport, the cause of the plane the crash is yet to be established. Rescue teams could not access the site are till early Thursday due to bad weather and are still investigating the cause of the crash.
Tourism has boosted local travel in the eastern African country, local media reported. In 2014, Kenya’s aviation authorities cleared budget airline JamboJet to operate flights across Africa from Nairobi and Mombasa.
The Express Team
