Plane With 11 On Board Crashes Into Forest In Cameroon, No Hope For Survivors
By Uganda online Media Correspondent
A plane crashed in Cameroon shortly after takeoff with 11 people on board. A search is underway to see if there are any survivors with the plane had gone down in a forest.
A desperate search for survivors is underway after an aircraft carrying 11 people crashed into a forest during a storm in Cameroon.
The plane went missing shortly after take-off and going down near Nanga Eboko, in Centre Province.
Authorities have said the tragic incident occurred at around 2 pm, local time, on Wednesday, with the job now to see if there were any survivors, reported the Daily Star.
A major storm hit the country’s capital Yaounde late in the afternoon, before the plane’s signal was lost after it took off from the city’s Nsimalen airport with 11 people on board.
Cameroon’s Transport Minister Ernest Ngalle Bibehe confirmed in a statement that air traffic control lost contact with the plane.
Authorities sent both air and land rescue teams after the aircraft disappeared, according to CNA.
Those rescue teams have now reached the wreckage but it reportedly remains highly unlikely that anyone has made it out alive.
Authorities have not yet revealed the owners of the plane and did publish some images of the search at the crash site.
A ministry official, speaking anonymously, said the plane “crashed” and rescuers were “trying to see if it’s possible to save anyone.”
Cameroon24 reported that the crash left no survivors but this has not been confirmed by official sources.
Some of those were airline personnel whereas others were workers for the Cameroon Oil Transportation Company (COTCO), the private company which chartered the plane, according to official sources.
COTCO maintains a hydrocarbon pipeline that runs between Cameroon and neighbouring Chad.
The tragedy is Cameroon’s first reported major air catastrophe since 2007. Then, a Kenya Airways plane carrying 114 people crashed after take-off from Douala Airport, leaving no survivors.