By DPA
Nairobi : A passenger jet en route to the Kenyan capital Nairobi with 114 people aboard, most of them from India, Cameroon and South Africa, has crashed in southern Cameroon, officials and radio reports said Saturday.
Kenya Airways confirmed that the Boeing 737-800 aircraft was missing. "We do not know what happened to the aircraft," airline chief Titus Naikuni said. "We have not yet found the plane."
There were indications however that the aircraft may have gone down in thick rainforest in the southwest of the country. Residents in the Lolodorf region reported hearing a loud explosion, Cameroon radio said.
A spokesperson for the airline said that takeoff from the Cameroonian city of Douala had been delayed by an hour due to heavy rains.
The airline also revised downwards the number of passengers on board, from 106 to 105. The plane also carried at least seven Europeans, including five Britons, a Swiss and a Swede, the airline said.
Rescue teams and helicopters were deployed in the area, around 100 km south of Douala, in an effort to locate the wreckage. Poor weather conditions were however hampering the location and recovery efforts.
South African Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa told the SAPA news agency that seven South Africans were aboard the plane.
"The South African government extends heartfelt condolences to the Kenyan and Cameroonian authorities as well as the South African families," Mamoepa said.
Earlier Saturday a spokeswoman for Nairobi airport, where the plane was due to land, said that contact with the plane was lost shortly after takeoff from Douala.
The aircraft originally took off from the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan and made an interim stop at Douala before taking off again shortly after midnight on its way to Nairobi. It was due to land early Saturday.
An emergency signal was received from the aircraft shortly after takeoff, Naikuni said. The signal was an automatically generated broadcast and had not been transmitted by the pilot.
Anxious relatives had gathered at Nairobi's airport and were waiting for news, some of them breaking down in anguish. The airline said it had set up a crisis centre at the airport as well as a telephone hotline for concerned relatives.
The Kenyan government expressed its condolences to the families of those aboard, while Foreign Minister Ali Makwere was to lead a delegation to Cameroon on Saturday evening.
Kenya Airways is a partner of KLM and Air France. In 2000 a Kenya Airways plane crashed following takeoff in Abidjan, killing 169 people.
A spokesperson for the airline told South African radio that the plane involved Saturday was brand new.