Cameroon airliner black box found

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Rescuers in Cameroon say they have retrieved the flight data recorder from the Kenya Airways plane that crashed in a mangrove swamp on Saturday.

Officials hope it may shed light on the cause of the crash of the Boeing 737-800 which killed all 114 people from at least 23 nations on board.

On Monday, rescuers began removing bodies from the crash site near Douala.

The plane came down shortly after taking off in heavy rain from Douala en route to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

"We found the flight data recorder," Cameroon's civil aviation director general Ignatius Sana Juma was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

"We still need to recover the cockpit voice recorder," he said.

Flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders, also known as black boxes, contain a wide variety of information, including speed and altitude as wells as cockpit voice communications.

'No survivors'

The wreckage was found near the village of Mbanga Pongo, about 20km (12 miles) south-west of Douala - about 36 hours after the plane vanished from radar screens.

A Cameroonian official in charge of the recovery effort at the scene said he had surveyed the entire site and no-one had survived.

"There are no chances of finding any (survivors) under the circumstances," Luc Ndjodo said. "There is a crater filled with water and a clearing, then buried in the mud there are scattered plane parts and debris," he told AP news agency.

A team from the US National Transportation Safety Board is due to arrive at the scene, with French and US investigators already conducting aerial searches, US embassy officials said.

They will also assist with forensics and the recovery of bodies.

The International Red Cross is leading the search and recovery mission, alongside the Cameroonian government and military paramedics.

Body parts

On Monday, investigators battled through dense mangrove swamps to reach the wreckage, after parts of the jet were discovered late on Sunday.

The grim find was made by local fishermen.

"I saw one body and one arm. We also saw some seats and a piece of plane about the size of a car door," Guiffo Gande told reporters in Mbanga Pongo village.

NATIONALITIES OF MISSING 35 Cameroon15 India9 Kenya (crew)7 South Africa6 China6 Ivory Coast6 Nigeria5 Britain3 Niger2 Central African Republic2 Democratic Republic of Congo2 Equatorial Guinea1 Ghana; Sweden; Togo; Mali; Switzerland; Comoros; Egypt; Mauritius; Senegal; Congo; Tanzania; US; Burkina Faso 3 unidentified<i>Source: Kenya Airways</i> <a class="" href="/1/hi/world/africa/6632067.stm">The smell of death</a>

With the site inaccessible to vehicles, the recovery of bodies and investigation will be a difficult and slow process, says the BBC's Noel Mwakugu in Douala.

Flight KQ 507 left Douala at 0005 on Saturday (2305 GMT Friday) and was due to arrive in Kenya at 0615 (0315 GMT).

It sent a communication to the control tower in Douala shortly after take-off and later issued an automatic distress signal, Kenya Airways said.

Search efforts initially focused on dense jungle under the plane's intended flight path from Douala and then on a swamp area where fishermen reported hearing noises the night the plane disappeared.

Officials said it was too early determine what caused the crash.

The aircraft was just six months old and part of a new fleet bought by the airline, which has a good safety record.

In January 2000, one of its planes crashed into the sea after taking off from Abidjan, killing 169 passengers. Ten people survived.