New bid to get bodies off peak

2003-07-22 12:59

Mount Kenya - Efforts to recover the remains of three generations of an American family and two South African pilots, all killed when their chartered planed crashed into snowcapped Mount Kenya, resumed on Tuesday as skies cleared, officials said.

Thick clouds and snow had hampered recovery efforts a day earlier.

Authorities were optimistic they would be able to get the remains of at least 10 of the 14 killed in the crash, said Bongo Woodley, senior Kenya Wildlife Service warden.

Despite the good weather, Woodley said the recovery effort remained logistically daunting - the tail section of the plane was below a steep ridge struck by the aircraft, and the rest was spread out over hundreds of feet above the ridge.

"It's still very difficult" at the 4 800m-high crash site, just below Point Lenana, the third-highest peak on Africa's second-highest mountain, said Woodley, who is in charge of Mount Kenya National Park.

"It's also very psychologically straining for workers ... there's lot of unpleasantness," he said.

Air thin on oxygen at that height

Several of the Kenyan rangers and police have been affected by altitude sickness and lack of oxygen.

The twin-engined, South African-registered Fairchild turboprop is believed to have hit Point Lenana as a cloudy sky cleared on Saturday afternoon.

However, there are conflicting reports about the time of the crash and no clear indication of the cause.

A Kenyan official has speculated that bad weather was the cause.

One investigator each from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration were to arrive at the crash site later Tuesday at the request of the Kenyan government.

Kenya's Civil Aviation Authority is the body that investigates plane crashes.

Those killed in the crash were: Dr George W Brumley, 68; his wife, Jean, 67; three of their children, George III, 42, daughters Lois, 39, and Elizabeth, 41; George's wife, Julia, 42, and two children, George IV, 14, and Jordan, 12; Lois's husband, Richard Morrell, 43, and their son, Alex, 11, and Beth's husband William Love, 41, and their daughter, Sarah, 12.

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

Family members who weren't on the trip include the Brumleys' adult twin daughters, their children and five young orphaned grandchildren - two in Atlanta and three who stayed behind in South Africa with a governess.

The plane-crash victims had been planning to spend time at a private ranch on a game reserve in north central Kenya.

- AP