Kenya: Plane crashes with more than 100 on board

A Kenya Airways flight with more than 100 people on board crashed in southern Cameroon today, state radio reported.

The radio said the plane, which lost contact with airport controllers soon after taking off at around midnight, crashed near the southern town of Niete.

The report did not provide further details.

Earlier today, Kenya Airways said it had lost contact with the plane shortly after take-off.

“The last message was received in Douala after take-off and thereafter the tower was unable to contact the plane,” Kenya Airways chief executive Titus Naikuni said in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

The Boeing 737-800 was carrying 106 passengers, eight crew members and a flight engineer, he said. The plane can carry 189 passengers.

The flight left Douala, Cameroon, at 12.05am and was due to arrive in Nairobi at 6.15am. It had originated in the Ivory Coast but stopped in Cameroon to pick up more passengers, the airline said.

The airline opened a crisis management centre near the Nairobi airport. Relatives of those on the plane were instructed to go to a downtown Nairobi airport, where they would be provided with information as it became available.

The last crash of an international Kenya Airways flight was on January 30, 2000, when Flight 431 was taking off from Abidjian in the Ivory Coast, on its way to Nairobi. Investigators blamed a faulty alarm and pilot error for that crash, which killed 169 people.