May 05, 2007

15 Indians aboard plane

Nairobi, May 5: Fifteen Indians were aboard a Kenyan Airways airliner that crashed on Saturday after taking off from Douala airport in Cameroon on a flight to Nairobi, the company said.

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 9 crew.

The plane was carrying 79 Africans, 21 Asians, 7 Europeans, 1 US citizen and 6 others.

The nationalities are: 34 Cameroonians, 15 Indians, 9 Kenyan crew members, 7 South Africans, 6 Chinese, 6 Ivorians, 9 Nigerians, 5 Britons, 2 from the Central African Republic, 2 from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1 US citizen, 1 Swiss, 1 Swede, 1 Malian, 1 Tagolese, 1 Ghanaian, 1 from the Comoros, 1 from Mauritius, 1 Senegalese, 1 Congolese from Congo-Brazzaville, 1 Egyptian, 1 Tanzanian, and 1 from Burkina Faso.

The nationalities of 6 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 said.

Two Cameroonian Army helicopters began searching a wide area south of the line beween Douala and the capital Yaounde, 250 kilometres 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.


Source: www.expressindia.com

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