Bodies 'beyond recognition'

2003-07-20 21:44

Nairobi - It can take several days to recover all the bodies of two South African pilots and 12 US tourists after their plane crashed into Mount Kenya.

A civil aviation official said the chartered plane crashed after flying too close to the mountain.

A senior warden for Mount Kenya national park, Woodley Bongo, said people on the ground were "guarding the wreckage scene until some police and other helicopters fly there at dawn, when the weather will permit."

But given bad weather plaguing the remote and high-altitude area, rescue officials were forced to stay overnight in nearby Nanyuki and wait until Monday "to overfly the mountain when it's clear enough to retrieve the remaining bodies," senior police official David Kimaiyo said.

Bongo and Kimaiyo said the remoteness of the area, combined with the bad weather, were delaying the operation until early on Monday.

Bongo said the rescue exercise could take several days.

"It was a high-impact crash, the plane exploded and there is lots of stuff that will not be retrieved," Bongo added.

Kimaiyo said rescue teams had recovered eight bodies from the wreckage and their identity documents.

"Most bodies were crushed beyond recognition, but we were able to get documents for eight US tourists," Kimaiyo said.

"The bodies recovered were those of four women, two men and a boy and girl born between 1991 and 1992," he said.

"It was a terrible accident, as rescuers from the civil aviation and Kenyan police found flesh scattered all over the scene."

A spokesperson of Air 2000, the owners of the plane, said they had no information about the crash and that it was difficult to communicate with Kenyan officials.

- AFX