Nairobi, May 5
Fifteen Indians were aboard a Kenyan Airways airliner that crashed today after taking off from Douala airport in Cameroon on a flight to Nairobi, the company said today.
Kenya Airways said a total of 114 people were on board the Boeing 737-800 travelling from Abidjan to Nairobi, via Douala, including 105 passengers and nine crew. The plane was carrying 79 Africans, 21 Asians, seven Europeans, one US citizen and six others.
The nationalities are: 34 Cameroonians, 15 Indians, nine Kenyan crew members, seven South Africans, six Chinese, six Ivorians, nine Nigerians, five Britons, two from the Central African Republic, two from the Democratic Republic of Congo, one US citizen, one Swiss, one Swede, one Malian, one Tagolese, one Ghanaian,one from the Comoros, one from Mauritius, one Senegalese, one Congolese from Congo-Brazzaville, one Egyptian, one Tanzanian, and one from Burkina Faso.
The nationalties of six others were not yet known, according to a statement from Kenya Airways.
Air traffic controllers picked up a distress signal from the missing airliner just after it took off from Douala airport in Cameroon, a source close to the Agency for the Safety of Aerial Navigation in Africa told AFP.
Two Cameroonian army helicopters began searching a wide area south of the line beween Douala and the capital Yaounde, 250 km to the east, to try to locate the aircraft.
Air France-KLM owns 26 per cent stake in Kenya Airways, which prides itself on its reputation as a reliable African air company.
— AFP
