Nigeria: Six Nigerian, 108 Others Feared Dead





5 May 2007
Posted to the web 6 May 2007

Ahmed I Shekarau


Six Nigerians have been confirmed to be among 114 people on board a Kenya Airways plane, which reportedly crashed yesterday in southern cameroon.

The flight which originated in Ivory Coast, was reported missing yesterday after it failed to arrive in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.


Cameroon state radio said the plane came down south of Doula, the commercial capital although Kenya Aurways had as at yesterday only confirmed that it was missing.

The BBC reported that people from atleast 23 different nationalities were onboard, including 35 Camerooninas, 15 Indians, nine Kenyans who were members of crew, seven South Africans and five Britons, the airline said.

Nigeria, China and Ivory Coast had six nationals each onboard the crashed plane, while the Niger republic had three of its citizens.

But the identities of the six Nigerians on board the crashed aircraft could not be ascertained up to press time yesterday.

Spokesman of Nigeria's Minister of State in charge of Air Transportation, Bayo Oladeji said government was yet to get official report on the identities of the nation's citizens on board the craft.

Mr. Oladeji who sought time to make further inquiries from other top aviation officials told Sunday Trust yesterday, that government was still awaiting report on the identities of those involved. He, however, advised our reporter to check with offices of either Cameroon Airlines or the Kenya Airways.

Other countries whose nationals are confirmed to be on board the Kenya Airways jet were the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Equatorial Guinea, each of which had two, while Ghana; Sweden, Togo, Mali, Switzerland, Comoros, Egypt, Mauritius, Senegal, Congo, Tanzania, US and Burkina Faso had one national each on board the ill-fated jet, according to the manifest released yesterday by the airline.

Reports indicate that the identities of three of the passengers on board were not known as at yesterday.

The BBC reported that Kenya's national carrier had a good safety record. However, 169 people died when one of its planes crashed in 2000.

The BBC's Karen Allen in Nairobi said the Boeing 737-800 involved in yesterday's incident was just six months old and was part of a new fleet bought by the airline.

According to reports, Flight KQ 507 originated in Abidjan in Ivory Coast and left Douala in Cameroon at 0005 local time (0105 GMT) yesterday. It was due to arrive in Nairobi at 0615 (0315 GMT).

Kenya Airways said the last communication with the missing plane was received by the control tower in Douala, on Cameroon's coast, shortly after take-off.

Cameroon 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 centred around 100kms (62 miles) south-west of [Cameroon's political capital] Yaounde," Kenyan Airways chief executive 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. Poor weather was reported to have hampered the rescue effort.

Kenyan Transport Minister Chirau Ali Makwere - who was 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 was quoted by the Associated Press (AP) as saying.

A crisis management centre has been set up in Nairobi. A number of worried friends and relatives have been gathering at the capital's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

"We had been told to sit and wait," one relative of a missing passenger told AFP news agency.


"A lot of people are crying, pe-ople are asking what is happening."

The Kenya Airways website said the fleet is 23 strong. It is 26%-owned by Air France KLM's Dutch company KLM.

In January 2000 a Kenya Airways plane crashed into the sea after taking off from Abidjan airport in Ivory Coast killing 169 people. There were 10 survivors.