Cameroon starts probe into air crash

By Emmanuel Braun

MBANGA PONGO, Cameroon (Reuters) - Cameroon opened an inquiry on Tuesday into the crash of a Kenya Airways plane which rescuers took two days to find, and forensic experts began trying to identify the remains of the 114 victims.

Investigators and rescue officials, struggling in knee-deep mud softened by recent rain, pored over the shattered wreckage of the Boeing 737-800, which plunged into swampy jungle minutes after takeoff from Cameroon's second city Douala late on Friday.

The inquiry was expected to focus not only on why the plane, only six months old, came down in stormy weather, but also why rescuers took 48 hours to find the crash site.

"From the end of the runway (to the crash site) it is 5.42 kilometres (3.37 miles) ... relatively close to Douala airport," Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said in Nairobi.

Search parties and a radar-equipped helicopter had spent the weekend scouring forests in southern Cameroon, 150 km (95 miles) away.

Cameroonian officials have said initial search efforts were based on satellite tracking data from Europe which seemed to put the plane's last position over the forests of south Cameroon.

Celeste Mandeng of Cameroon's Civil Protection Service said investigators would cover all possibilities, including whether the pilot turned back and tried to land again at Douala.

Cameroon Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni ordered Transport Minister Dakole Daissala to lead a formal government inquiry into the crash, which once again threw the spotlight on air safety in Africa, the continent with the world's worst record.