Plane With U.S. Tourists Crashes in Kenya

767?

Any word on the pilot's ethnicity?

Any plane, I'm done with flying.

Prayers for the victims.

Plane Crash on Mount Kenya Kills 14 (All from Atlanta)

By SUSAN LINNEE, Associated Press Writer - NAIROBI, Kenya - A chartered aircraft carrying three generations of one American family to a game reserve plowed into Mount Kenya, killing all 12 tourists and the two South African pilots on board, officials said Sunday.

The twin-engine Fairchild turboprop hit Point Lenana, the third-highest peak on Africa's second-highest mountain, as a cloudy sky was beginning to clear just before sunset Saturday, said Bongo Woodley, senior Kenya Wildlife Service warden in charge of Mount Kenya National Park.

"We heard it immediately, and I have flown over the site and seen the crash, and there do not appear to be any survivors," Woodley said by telephone from the park headquarters in Naro Moru, 75 miles north of Nairobi.

Rangers based below the crash site found no survivors when they visited the site late Saturday but recovered eight American passports, Woodley said.

In Atlanta, the Rev. P.C. Enniss Jr. at Trinity Presbyterian Church said he had spent much of the day with the victims' relatives.

He gave their names as: Dr. George Brumley, 68; his wife, Jean, 67; three of their children, George III, daughters Lois and Beth. George's wife Julia and two children, George IV and Jordan. Lois' husband Richard Murrell and their son, Alex, 11. Beth's husband William Love and their daughter Sarah, 12.

"They're just in total shock, as everyone in the church family is," Enniss said of the victims' relatives. "These people were the heart of Trinity Presbyterian Church as much as anybody else. They were involved in every mission, every governing decision, everything.

"They were just loved by every member of the congregation, and they were just like family," he said.

Senior police and civil aviation officials on Sunday visited the area where the plane slammed into the mountain at 16,000 feet, but could not reach certain parts of the site because of bad weather and difficult terrain, said Isaiya Kabira, a spokesman for President Mwai Kibaki.

Another attempt to recover the bodies was to be made on Monday.

Peter Wakahia, a Kenyan civil aviation official, said the aircraft had been "completely destroyed," and debris was scattered on two rock outcrops on either side of the point of impact.

Mount Kenya, an extinct volcano, has three peaks: Batian at 17,157 feet; Nelion at 17,120 feet; and Point Lenana at 16,450 feet.

Anne Gaines-Burrill, a director of Air-2000, a South African charter company, said their Fairchild SW-4 aircraft bearing registration number ZSOYI and carrying two South African pilots departed from Lanseria airport near Johannesburg at 6 a.m. Saturday and landed at Nairobi's Wilson Airport about 2 p.m.

About two hours later, the plane took off for Buffalo Springs National Reserve, where it was expected to leave the passengers at an airstrip, officials said. Buffalo Springs is 135 miles north of Nairobi.

The aircraft had been expected back at Wilson at 6 p.m. Saturday, Gaines-Burrill said.

It wasn't clear where the Americans were to go after getting off at Buffalo Springs. In addition to public lodges and tented camps in the highlands area of spectacular rolling hills and mountains, there are a number of exclusive private game ranches in the region, which also encompasses the Samburu and Shaba national reserves.

You know, if it were 50 or 60 I could seem 'em haggling over it but this is over 2,000 feet worth of difference.

Don't get to Africa much, huh?

BTW, did you know that the reason the Southern border of Kenya takes a jog bround Kilmanjaro is because Queen Victoria gave the mountain to her grand-son, Wilhelm II, the future Kaiser of Germany, as a birthday gift?

NEWS24.com (SOUTH AFRICAN PRESS AGENCY): "Al-Qaeda 'shot down' plane" 27/07/2003 19:09 - (SA)

ARTICLE SNIP: "Dubai - An Islamic website on Sunday carried a statement attributed to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network claiming responsibility for a plane crash in Kenya that left 12 Americans and two South Africans dead.

The statement, the authenticity of which could not be verified, said the plane was hit "head on" with a ground-to-air SAM-7 missile.

It was apparently fired by followers of Mohammed Atef, the Egyptian national suspected of being Bin Laden's number two."

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1393555,00.html
###

I'll be dogged if I can locate it, but either the Brunswick News or the Florida Times-Union carried a story about this- the Doctor on board was a prominent Saint Marys citizen. Most of his family were killed in the crash.

Close as I can get:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=usa&q=%2Bgeorge+brumley&btnG=Search+News

That's great Backhoe -- No al-qaeda propaganda in that search.

Here's a page I pulled:

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Headline: 3 generations of Atlanta family die in Kenya crash - CNN -- Detail Story

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- Twelve members of a prominent Atlanta family were the victims of a charter plane crash on Mount Kenya over the weekend, a spokesman for the family said.

The flight had originated in Mozambique and stopped in Nairobi before heading for the Kenyan city of Samburu, which is home to popular game reserves, said David Kimaiyo of the Kenyan police.

Saturday evening, the flight crashed into the snow-capped, 16,355-foot Lenana Peak on Mount Kenya. Kenyan authorities were still investigating the cause of the accident, Kimaiyo said.

Officials in Kenya said the plane was destroyed.

Killed were retired Atlanta physician George Brumley Jr, 68, and his wife, Jean, 67.

Also killed was their daughter Lois Morrell, 39, her husband Richard, 43, and son Alexander, 11; daughter Elizabeth Love, 41, her husband William, 41, and daughter Sarah, 12; and son George III, 42, his wife Julia, 42, and their son George IV, 14, and daughter Jordan, 12.

The plane's two-person crew was also lost.

The Brumleys and their children were known philanthropists to many charitable causes in the Atlanta area, including hospitals and schools. The eldest Brumley was for years the chairman of Emory University's Department of Pediatrics and later served as interim dean of the medical school.

"These families have experienced a terrible loss," read a family statement, "and words cannot describe their pain and grief."