Plane crash: Search goes on

2003-07-21 12:27

Mount Kenya - Additional recovery teams were climbing to the upper slopes of Mount Kenya on Monday morning to search for more remains of 12 United States tourists and two South African pilots whose plane crashed at the weekend, police said.

Thick cloud scuppered plans to fly helicopters again to Lenana Peak, the site of Saturday's crash, so climbing was the only option, said senior police superintendent Sevelino Kubai.

The bodies of eight of the tourists - four women, two men and a boy and a girl born in 1991 and 1992 - were found with their documents on Sunday.

"About nine people from the Kenya police, Kenya Wildlife Service and others are at the crash scene, looking for body parts on the mountain," said Kubai.

Another 32 recovery workers have reached Teleki, a camp nearly one-third of the way up the 4 985m peak, "and are still climbing on foot to change shifts with those already up the mountain," said Kubai.

Pieces strewn all over the place

"Our helicopters cannot land at the scene of accident because of a dense cloud cover," he said.

They would consider trying again in the evening or on Tuesday morning.

A charter pilot, who asked not to be named, flew over the accident site and said: "You could see the recovery team collecting pieces of flesh and putting them into body bags."

Kenyan police pilot captain Gilbert Gitonga said: "It seems the plane hit a rocky part of Lenana Peak and split into pieces. From above, you could see mangled pieces of the plane strewn all over the place."

Kubai said the collected body parts would be carried down by rescuers to Teleki Camp, from where they would be taken by car to KWS area headquarters at Naru Moru at the foot of the mountain.

A police officer, who asked not to be named, said US embassy officials in Nairobi had been told of the accident, but no one had yet arrived.

- AFX