Ten American tourists were feared dead last night after their charter plane crashed in mountains in Africa.
The victims were described as three couples and a group of four from Florida, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California and New Jersey.
The tragedy occurred when the group’s Cessna 404 aircraft – flying from the famed Serengeti safari park to an airport near Mount Kilimanjaro – took a sudden nose-dive yesterday morning, about halfway into the hourlong flight.
Rescue officials searched for survivors through dense fog, but said there was “almost zero” chance that anybody survived.
The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, said six men and four women were aboard the aircraft, along with a Tanzanian tour guide and a pilot.
Their identities were not immediately available.
“We are not optimistic about survivors, and the search has been hampered by bad weather,” an embassy spokesman said.
The plane crashed near Mount Meru, a 14,979-foot mountain west of Kilimanjaro.
Tanzanian aviation officials said flying conditions were bad when the plane came down.
But seven other American vacationers in the same touring group arrived safely at Kilimanjaro International Airport in another plane that took off at about the same time.
Air-traffic controllers lost contact with the doomed plane at 3:20 a.m. New York time, about a half-hour after it left the Seronera airstrip.
Initial reports from rescue planes – that people could be seen moving in the area of the crash, indicating survivors – were discounted when the people turned out to be residents of a local village.
“We went there with helicopters and tried to land, but it was very foggy, and we could not,” said Tanzanian regional Police Commissioner Juma Ng’wanang’waka.
The victims had been on a trip with Abercrombie & Kent tours, and had been staying at the Serengeti Serena Wildlife Lodge, a luxury safari camp in the Serengeti.
The park draws tens of thousands of tourists every year with its wide range of big-game animals.
Nearby Kilimanjaro – Africa’s biggest mountain – stands at 19,347 feet.