Plane-crash tourists one family

2003-07-21 08:37

Nairobi - The 12 American tourists killed in a plane crash on Mount Kenya have been named.

A chartered aircraft carrying three generations of one American family to a game reserve plowed into Mount Kenya, killing all 12 tourists and the two South African pilots on board, officials said.

The twin-engine Fairchild turboprop hit Point Lenana, the third-highest peak on Africa's second-highest mountain, as a cloudy sky was beginning to clear just before sunset on Saturday, said Bongo Woodley, senior Kenya Wildlife Service warden in charge of Mount Kenya National Park.

"We heard it and I have flown over the site and seen the crash. There do not appear to be any survivors," Woodley said on Sundayfrom park headquarters in Naro Moru, 120km north of Nairobi.

Rangers based below the crash site found no survivors when they visited the site late Saturday but recovered eight American passports, Woodley said.

'The heart of Trinity Presbyterian Church'

In Atlanta, the Rev P C Enniss jun at Trinity Presbyterian Church said he had spent much of the day with the victims' relatives.

He gave their names as: Dr George Brumley, 68; his wife, Jean, 67; three of their children, George III, daughters Lois and Beth; George's wife, Julia, and two children, George IV and Jordan; Lois's husband, Richard Murrell, and their son, Alex, 11, and Beth's husband, William Love, and their daughter, Sarah, 12.

"They're just in total shock, as everyone in the church family is," Enniss said of the victims' relatives.

"These people were the heart of Trinity Presbyterian Church as much as anybody else. They were involved in every mission, every governing decision, everything.

"They were just loved by every member of the congregation, and they were just like family," he said.

Senior police and civil aviation officials on Sunday visited the area where the plane slammed into the mountain at 4 800m, but could not reach certain parts of the site because of bad weather and difficult terrain, said Isaiya Kabira, a spokesman for President Mwai Kibaki.

Another attempt to recover the bodies was to be made on Monday.

Passengers were to be dropped at strip

Peter Wakahia, a Kenyan civil aviation official, said the aircraft had been "completely destroyed," and debris was scattered on two rock outcrops on either side of the point of impact.

Mount Kenya, an extinct volcano, has three peaks: Batian at 5 147m, Nelion at 5 136m and Point Lenana at 4 935m.

Anne Gaines-Burrill, a director of Air 2000, a South African charter company, said their Fairchild SW-4 aircraft bearing registration number ZSOYI and carrying two South African pilots left Lanseria Airport near Johannesburg at 06:00 on Saturday and landed at Nairobi's Wilson Airport about 14:00.

About two hours later, the plane took off for Buffalo Springs National Reserve, where it was expected to leave the passengers at an airstrip, officials said. Buffalo Springs is 217km north of Nairobi.

The aircraft had been expected back at Wilson at 18:00 on Saturday, said Gaines-Burrill.

It wasn't clear where the Americans were to go after getting off at Buffalo Springs.

In addition to public lodges and tented camps in the highlands area of spectacular rolling hills and mountains, there are a number of exclusive private game ranches in the region, which also encompasses the Samburu and Shaba national reserves.

- AP