By IANS
New Delhi : Even as reports came in that the wreckage of the Kenyan Airways plane with 15 Indians on board had been sighted Sunday near the Cameroon capital Yaounde, the Indian mission in Nairobi said the Kenyan government had declined to give official confirmation.
"The Kenyan government had at a press conference announced that they had not yet been able to find the wreckage of the plane that crashed in Cameroon," acting High Commissoner Ketan Shukla told IANS on telephone from Nairobi late Sunday night.
"The Kenyan government will be holding another briefing on the matter tomorrow to give information on the progress made," he said.
Shukla said the Indian mission would extend all assistance to families of the victims who would want to come to Kenya for getting visas and other documents.
"We too have got reports of the wreckage being spotted. But, till we get confirmation from our mission, we cannot give any details," Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed told IANS.
Earlier, Cameroon radio reported that search teams had sighted the crashed airliner in a rain-forest southwest of the Cameroon capital, Yaounde. The plane with 114 people aboard, including 15 Indians, went missing early Saturday.
The search by two teams from Kenya and Cameroon for the aircraft had been hampered due to bad weather.
An Indian high commission official said a Kenyan team left for Cameroon immediately after the crash and two teams were looking for the aircraft.
There were indications 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 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, Kenya Airways chief Titus Naikuni said. The signal was an automatically generated broadcast and had not been transmitted by the pilot.
Kenya Airways is a partner of KLM and Air France. In 2000 a Kenya Airways plane crashed following takeoff in Abidjan, killing 169 people.
Following is the list of 15 confirmed Indian nationals on board the Kenyan Airways flight KO-507 as put out by the Indian External Affairs ministry.
1. B Madhusudan.
2. Ms Poojita Madhusudan.
3. Mrs Bhagya Madhusudan.
4. Kevin Joseph Jude.
5. Mrs Shirley Nigli.
6. Ms Gracey Manuel.
7. Mrs Maria Joseph.
8. Mr Aman Gaur.
9. Nalakath Gireesan.
10. Amol Chauhan.
11. George Joseph Kochery.
12. Mrs Meera Shah.
13. Inder Deep.
14. Prakash Sundaram.
15. David Kenneth John.