Search for missing US plane causes panic in Bakossi Village

The search for a four-seater plane, flying from Nigeria to Gabon via Cameroon which disappeared last Monday night, in Cameroon airspace has caused chaos in Boka Village in Kupe Muanenguba Division.

Reports say the villagers ran in and out of their homes as a helicopter searching for the plane landed at the village.

According to our sources the persons onboard are reported to have calmed the onlookers explaining their mission to the area.

The plane in question allegedly disappeared from Cameroon airspace after it was handed over to Cameroonian Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) by its Nigerian counterpart.

The plane, owned by the U.S. Company, Global Aviation, took off from Kano at 6.00 p.m. a week ago, en route to Libreville in Gabon, where it was scheduled to arrive at 11 p.m., after a stopover in Douala, Cameroon.

However, the station said the latest plane, with only the American pilot on board, did not make it to Douala.

It said the last contact the plane had with the control tower was in Mongo, which is two-hour flight from the Cameroonian economic capital.

This is coming more than three months after a Malaysia Airlines aircraft B777-200 extended range with flight number MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing lost contact with Air Traffic Control on March 8, less than an hour after takeoff with 12 Malaysian crew and 227 passengers from 14 nations.

Report said search and rescue operations led by Cameroon’s civil aviation authorities have not yielded any positive results also on the latest disappearance.

Managing Director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Ibrahim Abdulsalam, confirmed that the aircraft had gone out of Nigerian airspace and handed over to Cameroon.

“It did not occur within the Nigerian airspace so there is nothing we can do about it. We have handed over the aircraft to the Cameroonian airspace,” Abdulsalam said.

A source close to Nigeria ATC, told Daily Independent that the Cameroonian ATC called its Nigeria counterpart to inform them that the aircraft has disappeared from the Cameroon airspace.

At press time it was not clear if the aircraft finally crashed but some online reports claiming that it had crashed while others said the Cameroonian Search and Rescue (SAR) has since started searching for the missing airplane.

Meanwhile, reports say families of some of those on board the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 have received initial compensation more than three months after the disappearance.

The airline insurer has paid 37,000 euros to six Malaysian families and one Chinese family so far and the claims of some 40 other families are being assessed.

The airline said families of all the missing passengers and crew are eligible.