Plane carrying foreign tourists crashes en route to popular reserve in Kenya, killing 11 people

A plane crash killed 11 people, mostly foreign tourists, in Kenya’s coastal region of Kwale early Tuesday while en route to Maasai Mara National Reserve.

The airline, Mombasa Air Safari, said in a statement that eight Hungarian and two German passengers were on board, and that the Kenyan pilot was also killed. The plane crashed in a hilly and forested area about 25 miles from Diani airstrip, authorities said.

The airline did not confirm what time the aircraft departed Diani airstrip, saying the pilot failed to communicate upon departure and the airport control tower tried to reach him for 30 minutes before the plane was located.

“Our primary focus right now is on providing all possible support to the families affected,” the airline said in a statement obtained by BBC News.

Investigating agencies were looking into the cause of the crash that happened at 5:30 a.m. local time, Kwale County Commissioner Stephen Orinde told The Associated Press. Later, the ministry of transport said in a statement the crash occurred at 8.35 a.m. local time. There was heavy rain in coastal Kenya in the morning.

“The weather is not very good here at the moment. Since early in the morning, it is raining and it is very misty, but we cannot preempt [the findings],” Orinde told BBC News.

The aircraft burst into flames, leaving a charred wreckage at the scene, officials said. Witnesses told the AP that they heard a loud bang, and upon arriving at the scene, they found unrecognizable human remains.

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority had earlier said that 12 people were on board the Cessna Caravan-type aircraft.

The Maasai Mara National Reserve, located west of the coastline, is a two-hour direct flight from Diani, a popular coastal town known for its sandy beaches. The reserve attracts a large number of tourists as it features the annual wildebeest migration from the Serengeti in Tanzania.

Last year, tourists were evacuated by helicopter from the reserve as devastating flooding hit the sanctuary.

The Kenyan coastline’s white sand beaches along the Indian Ocean attract tourists from all over the world.

According to the most recent safety oversight audit for Kenya posted on the International Civil Aviation Organization site, from 2018, the country fell below the global average in accident investigations.

In 2019, a small plane carrying five people from the nature reserve crashed in the west of the country, killing two Americans.