CHICAGO - All 11 people on a chartered plane taking executives of Sundance Resources Ltd. to the company's Mbalam iron ore project on the Cameroon-Republic of Congo border have died in a crash near the Congo-Gabonese border, spokesmen for the Australia-based company said Monday.
The plane had been reported missing on Saturday and was located Monday afternoon after mobilization of a multi-national air and ground search. A team of French military personnel was sent to the crash site by helicopter but found no survivors.
The site was secured late in the day and a Sundance spokesman said the recovery of the bodies from the site would resume on Tuesday.
Sundance confirmed that company personnel on the flight had included Geoff Wedlock, chairman; Don Lewis, managing director and chief executive officer; John Carr-Gregg, company secretary; non-executive directors Ken Talbot, John Jones and Craig Oliver; amd Jeff Duff, a representative of Dynamiq, a consultant to Sundance Resources.
Along with those personnel, who included six Australian citizens and one United States citizen, the identities of two other passengers on the flight, a French and a British citizen, and the two pilots, also French and British citizens, have not yet been released.
