January 31, 2000
Web posted at: 3:18 a.m. EST (0818 GMT)

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From staff and wire reports

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- Rescuers sought more survivors in the Atlantic waters off Abidjan early Monday after a Kenya Airways flight crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff Sunday evening.

At least eight of the 179 people believed on board have survived the crash, airline officials said Monday. Witnesses said the Airbus 310-300 never gained altitude after taking off from Abidjan for a flight to Lagos, Nigeria.

The crash was the first fatal mishap for Kenya Airways since it was formed in 1977. Airline officials said most of the 169 passengers and 10 crew members aboard Flight 431 were Nigerians: Two crew members on board were employees of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, a Kenya Airways partner.

Most of those aboard would have left the plane before it crashed if bad weather had not forced it to skip an earlier stop in Lagos.

MESSAGE BOARD Air safety     Hotlines Kenya Airways crisis centers: Nairobi: 254-2-823-489 London: 44-208-283-9666

The flight began in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and had been scheduled to stop in Lagos en route to Abidjan. But strong winds forced it to head directly for Abidjan, said Steve Clarke, the airline's technical director.

"It was an irregular routing because of bad weather," Clarke said told a news conference in Nairobi. "Some people are dead because they didn't stop in Lagos."

The plane came down about two kilometers (1.2 miles) east of the airport. At least 49 people had been confirmed dead by Monday morning, and more bodies were expected to be recovered later in the morning, said Lt. Col. Blaise Grah, an Ivorian firefighting official. French officials said one of their military helicopters and a marine battalion based nearby were aiding in the rescue effort.

One survivor, Samuel Ogbada Adje, said the plane started having problems as soon as it took off.

"It wasn't quite balanced, and the next thing we knew we were in the water," Adje said. He managed to swim out of the wreckage, but said the rescue effort had been a disaster.

"If they had come sooner, a lot of us would have been saved. We waited two hours for people to rescue us," he said.

The airline has a good safety and maintenance record and is considered a model airline in Africa by industry observers, said aviation journalist Nicholas Ionides. It is owned party by the Kenyan government, with KLM as its largest individual shareholder.

The jet was one of four Kenya Airways planes scheduled to be replaced within the next two years.

"It's too early to make any statements on the cause," said Hugo Baas, a KLM spokesman. "The airway has a good name in safety standards."

Kenya Airways said on Monday it was sending 29 officials and investigators to Abidjan to aid the crash probe. Airline official Francis Maina said as many as 20 people would leave for Abidjan later on Monday.

Nairobi Bureau Chief Alphonso Van Marsh, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.