Rescuers on Monday found the wreckage of a crashed plane carrying an Australian mining tycoon and other executives, with 10 bodies found so far, Cameroonian and Congolese officials said.
The plane carrying 11 people including tycoon Ken Talbot and the entire board of the Sundance Resources mining company went missing over the jungle on Saturday on a flight from Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, to Yangadou in the Republic of Congo.
“Ten bodies have been taken out of the wreckage. The search is continuing for the last,” Alphonse Pepa of the Congolese transports and civil aviation ministry told reporters. “The decision on where the bodies will be taken will be made tomorrow [Tuesday].”
Congolese civil aviation chief Michel Ambendet said the plane had been found at Dima, an area around 30km from Yangadou.
Six Australians, two British, two French and one US national were on the twin turboprop Casa C212 plane, which had been chartered by Sundance.
Cameroonian communication minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary confirmed that the wreckage was found in Congo and earlier said there were no survivors, but later said that rescuers had yet to recover all the bodies.
The French military had earlier joined the frantic search in thick forest on the Cameroon-Congo border, while Congolese authorities said they would call on pygmy tribesmen to join the hunt.
Fog over the jungle hampered efforts to locate the plane using two Cameroon government helicopters along with a French military C-160 transporter and Cougar helicopter.
Australian, US and Canadian officials had also been said to be helping.
Sundance’s former chairman, George Jones, said the board had shared the flight, as Talbot’s private jet was unable to land on the airstrip at Yangadou, a remote mining town where only small planes can land.
“It’s unusual for an entire board. It actually breaches corporate governance and obviously relates to the fact they could only get on one plane,” Jones told Fairfax Radio.
Sundance, an iron ore miner, halted its African operations and had ordered staff to help find the plane carrying Talbot, whose fortune is estimated at A$965 million (US$840 million) by BRW business magazine.
Trading in Sundance shares was halted and chief financial officer Peter Canterbury was named acting chief executive.
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