Fourteen killed as plane slams into mountain
Three generations of an American family were wiped out when a chartered aircraft carrying them to a game reserve crashed into Mount Kenya, killing all 12 tourists and the two South African pilots.
The twin-engine Fairchild turboprop hit Point Lenana, the third-highest peak on Africa’s second-highest mountain, as a cloudy sky was beginning to clear just before sunset on Saturday, said Bongo Woodley, senior Kenya Wildlife Service warden in charge of Mount Kenya National Park.
“We heard it immediately, and I have flown over the site and seen the crash, and there do not appear to be any survivors,” Woodley said from the park headquarters in Naro Moru, 75 miles north of Nairobi.
Rangers based below the crash site found no survivors when they visited the site but recovered eight American passports, Woodley said.
In Atlanta, Georgia, the Rev PC Enniss Jr at Trinity Presbyterian Church said he had spent much of the day with the victims’ relatives.
He named the victims as Dr George Brumley, 68; his wife, Jean, 67; three of their children – George III and daughters Lois and Beth; George’s wife Julia and two children, George IV and Jordan; Lois’ husband Richard Murrell and their son, Alex, 11; and Beth’s husband William Love and their daughter, Sarah, 12.
“They’re just in total shock, as everyone in the church family is,” Enniss said of the victims’ relatives.
Senior police and civil aviation officials visited the area where the plane slammed into the mountain at 16,000 feet but could not reach certain parts of the site because of bad weather and difficult terrain, said Isaiya Kabira, a spokesman for President Mwai Kibaki.
Another attempt to recover the bodies was being made today.
Peter Wakahia, a Kenyan civil aviation official, said the aircraft had been “completely destroyed” and debris was scattered on two rock outcrops on either side of the point of impact.
Mount Kenya, an extinct volcano, has three peaks: Batian at 17,157ft, Nelion at 17,120ft and Point Lenana at 16,450ft.
Anne Gaines-Burrill, a director of Air-2000, a South African charter company, said their Fairchild SW-4 aircraft departed from Lanseria airport near Johannesburg at 6am on Saturday and landed at Nairobi’s Wilson Airport about 2pm. About two hours later, the plane took off for Buffalo Springs National Reserve, where it was expected to leave the passengers at an airstrip.
