Lagos, Nigeria CNN  — 

All 10 people aboard a small plane which crashed Tuesday in a mountainous region in central Kenya are dead, government officials told CNN Thursday.

The wreckage of the plane was found in the Aberdare forest after two days of aerial and ground search, Paul Maringa, principal secretary at the Kenyan Ministry of Transport said.

Authorities said the Cessna Caravan plane which departed at 4:05 p.m. Tuesday from Kitale, was headed to the capital city of Nairobi. It lost contact with the control tower at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport a few minutes before landing.

“We spotted the crashed plane and rescue teams found no survivors from the passenger and the crew.

“The bodies have been transferred to the hospital and their families have been informed,” Maringa told CNN Thursday.

Investigation ongoing

Eight passengers and two pilots were on the flight, operated by a local company FlySax.

“We can not say what led to the crash until the wreckage has been recovered,” Maringa said. Rescue teams could not access the site are till early Thursday due to bad weather and are still investigating the cause of the crash, he said.

Tourism has boosted local travel in the eastern African country, local media reported. In 2014, Kenya’s aviation authorities cleared budget airline JamboJet to operate flights across Africa from Nairobi and Mombasa.

Kenya also received a safety certification last year from the US Federal Aviation Administration allowing its airlines to apply for non-stop flights to airports in the United States.