Anxiety Grows as Cameroon Continues Search for Plane Crash Victims, Pilot Identified as Daughter of Nigerian Governor

A search is underway to find victims of a small passenger plane that crashed in a forest in Cameroon on Wednesday.

A release by the Cameroon Transport Minister, Jean Ernest Massena Ngalle Bibehe says air traffic services “lost radio contact with an aircraft” that was flying from the Nsimalen International Airport to Belabo with 11 people on board.

An air and ground search spotted the crashed plane in a forest near Nanga-Eboko, some 150 km (93 miles) from the capital, Yaounde.

The victims’ identities are still not clear. Still, the 11 people were all staff of the Cameroon Oil Transportation Company, COTCO-the company that constructed and is managing the $3.7 billion worth Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline.

The communication office of the company told Timescape Magazine on the phone from Douala that “top officials are still holding meetings and I can’t give out any information about the details of what happened, or the nationalities of those involved.”

New details emerging reveal that the Pilot who died in the plane crash has been identified as the daughter of former Nasarawa State Deputy Governor, Senator Solomon Ewuga.

“We don’t yet know if there are any survivors,” the lady in the communication office added.

It is perhaps the deadliest crash in Cameroon since the May 5, 2007, Kenya Airlines plane crash in Douala in which all 114 passengers died.