Jungle path may be cut to reach crash bodies

Updated June 22, 2010 19:48:00

Audio: Difficult task of retrieving bodies begins (The World Today)
Audio: Tributes paid to crash victim Talbot (The World Today)
Related Story: Missing miners broke protocol by flying together
Related Story: Young families devastated by deaths

Rescue workers could be forced to cut a 10-kilometre track through the Congo jungle in an attempt to recover the bodies of six Australian mining executives and five others killed in a plane crash.

A plane carrying the entire Sundance mining company's board, including billionaire coal baron Ken Talbot and five others connected to the Perth-based firm, crashed in Congo on Monday, about 10 kilometres from the Cameroon border.

Two Britons, two French citizens and an American were also on the plane. Investigators are now trying to work out what went wrong.

Cameroon communications minister Issa Bakary has told Radio National the plane was found in rugged terrain.

"[The plane crashed] in a very hilly area and the access is very, very difficult," he said.

Sundance strategic adviser and former chairman George Jones says he does not believe the crash site in the West African nation is reachable by air.

"The [search] helicopter wasn't able to land near the site - it had to hover and people [went] down by ropes," Mr Jones said.

"It's not particularly dangerous. It's just very difficult."

Mr Jones says he is not aware of reports the airline involved had a poor safety record.

"That hasn't been reported to me. I've been advised that the company took all the appropriate steps procuring this plane," he said.

He says the entire board did not originally intend to travel together.

"It was intended to use two planes, including Mr Talbot's own jet. They found out late that the plane couldn't land at this particular strip," Mr Jones said.

"The whole board were there and they must have collectively made the decision to take their chances on the one aircraft.

"The flight was cleared by the insurers, all the appropriate information was made available and I would think that there are reasonable expectations that they should have been able to make the flight successfully."

Mr Jones says the board did not act improperly in all boarding the same flight.

"It is good corporate governance to not have so many [executives] travel [together]," he said.

"The board were all there and it's the board that sets that governance - it's not embodied in legislation."

He says the company will survive losing its board members.

"[Sundance's] entire management team, with the exception of Don Lewis, is still intact and there's some very capable people there," he said.

Sundance has appointed three strategic advisers, including Mr Jones, to guide the company.

"We'll be going to shareholders for ratification of our permanent appointment," Mr Jones said.

"I'm happy to reassume the chair of Sundance. It's got a good balance sheet so the company will survive."

Flight recorder


"The preliminary thoughts is that the plane hasn't burnt extensively so, it's too early to tell but it doesn't look like and explosion or a fire," Mr Jones said.

"It may be other causes."




Mr Jones says getting the bodies of those who died back to Australia is now the priority.

"We've got to recover them first and we started negotiations with all the relevant authorities and there's quite a myriad of things that have to be dealt with," he said.

"We're hopeful that we'll get through that as quickly as possible and get them back to Perth as quickly as possible."

Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says the task of repatriating the bodies will be no easy task.

"It will take longer than the families would wish to repatriate the bodies," he said.

"We've got two countries that we now need to deal with - Cameroon where the plane took off from and the Congo where the plane crashed."

Topics: air-and-space, business-economics-and-finance, industry, mining-industry, accidents, disasters-and-accidents, emergency-incidents, congo, australia, qld, wa, perth-6000, cameroon

First posted June 22, 2010 14:21:00