Business jet missing over central Africa

[vanHorck]

NOS Nieuws - Australisch zakenvliegtuig van radar verdwenen (http://nos.nl/artikel/166094-australisch-zakenvliegtuig-van-radar-verdwenen.html)

The plane was en route from Cameroon to Congo, had been airborne for 25 minutes and had the top management of a mining company on board including Ken Talbot, of Sundance Resources, when it suddenly disappeared from the radar. Mr. Talbot is one allegedly one of the richest men in Australia.

Most of the occupants were Australian.

A search is under way.

Already running on Biz forum for those interested, apologies.

[cirrus driver]

Not a jet- a small turboprop twin.
CASA 212

[protectthehornet]

please provide link to other forum as this is interesting...interesting too how someone could confuse a CASA212 witha jet

[vanHorck]

http://www.pprune.org/biz-jets-ag-flying-ga-etc/418766-missing-biz-jet-aussie-billionaire-africa.html

[MikeNYC]

Plane Carrying Sundance Board Found Crashed; All Dead, AFP Says - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-21/mining-magnate-talbot-s-plane-found-in-congo-with-no-survivors-afp-says.html)

The wreckage of a plane carrying the entire board of Sundance Resources Ltd. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=SDL:AU) was found in jungle in the Republic of Congo, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Cameroon’s Minister of Communication Issa Tchiroma Bakary.
There were no survivors among the passengers, who included millionaire mining magnate Ken Talbot (http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Ken%20Talbot&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1&partialfields=-wnnis:NOAVSYND&lr=-lang_ja), the news service said, citing the minister. The plane was reported missing June 19.
Six Australians, two British, two French and one U.S. citizen were on the twin turboprop Casa C212 plane, which had been chartered by Sundance, AFP said.

[G-CPTN]

BBC News - Mining executives' Africa plane wreckage found (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/10371154.stm)

[robbreid]

Sundance Resource's board had arrived on Mr. Talbot's Global Express VH-KTG, the confusion was due to the fact it was not know they had chartered another aircraft due to limitations of their destinations airport.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/robbreid/VH-KTG.jpg
photo from 'SZB 085'

[BizJet700]

Very sad news. Talbot was in London earlier this month with VH-KTG, pictured departing to Milan:
VH-KTG ~ 03.06.10 :: 085_VH-KTG.jpg (http://alexpeake.fotopic.net/p65219084.html)
VH-KTG ~ 03.06.10 :: 086_VH-KTG.jpg (http://alexpeake.fotopic.net/p65219086.html)

Interestingly, one of the flt crw was British.

[Gauteng Pilot]

How do you put the entire board of a company like that on 1 aircraft ?

Company rules of travel should never have allowed it

[onetrack]

The rules regarding separating board directors when engaged in air travel, are not set in any law in Australia. These are rules set by the board of directors, and every company has a different set of rules.
The Sundance Co corporate governance rules, did not have any ruling included, that involved separating directors into different flights when travelling to the same destination.
The bottom line is, they had more chance of being killed, travelling all together, in a Congolese taxi to the airport, from their hotel.
Perhaps they would have been better advised, to have some board ruling about the competence of the airline they used.

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

"The West Australian" newspaper (Perth) Saturday edition, 26.6.10 has a large summary of this accident - it has been carrying this story all week.
From 'The West...',

The flight concerned was in a Casa C-212 which was chartered for the leg to the mine site as the local strip was not big enough for the jet.
It departed Yaounde, Cameroon, at 0913 Sat (19.6) local time.

It was headed for Yangadou, a little village in the Congo close to the Nabeeba iron ore deposit that is the southern extension of the Company's Mbalam project. The crew made contact with Cameroon air traffic control at 0951 local time.

When the aircraft failed to arrive as scheduled at 10.20 local,the anxious welcoming party contacted the Company head office in Yaounde and raised concerns.

A search was commenced, and the military of Cameroon and Congo assisted.
By Monday (21.6), four planes and seven helo's were involved and were searching an area 'undulating and hilly jungle with thick undergrowth at around 500m above sea level'.
The land rose to 1000m in areas.

At around 10am Monday, the wreckage was located on the western ridge of the Avima Range in the Congo, near the Gabonese Border.

At 11.45 Monday, local time, the Company was told there were no survivors.

The C-212 was operated by Aero-Service, piloted by Steve Hollingworth, British, and Frederick Canal, French.

The remainder of the article suggests "the explanation is possibly they were flying in the area......which is in a hilly mountainous area."
It goes on to say "....they were possibly flying low and they got into a cloud or bad weather and didn't realise that on the other side of the cloud was a mountain".

It is not known why all 6 of the Company directors were travelling on the one aircraft at the same time.

A sad event.

p.s. When I was flying for a charter company many years ago, the client project manager and the business manager never flew on the same flight to/from construction sites in The Pilbara of WA.

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

From 'The West Australian', Monday 28.6

'Investigations have begun into the cause of the Sundance Resources plane crash after data from the black box flight recorder retrieved from the Congolese jungle was given to authorities at the weekend. (sic)

It is hoped the data will shed light on the cause of the tragedy which killed all 11 people on bboard, including six Australians.'

The article goes on to say that the analysis is likely to be handed to the US NTSB, which has agreed to help.....it is understood the main work will be undertaken by US and French authorities.

Happy Flying People.