KINSHASA, Sept 2: A humanitarian plane carrying 17 passengers and crew that went missing in Democratic Republic of Congo has crashed into a mountain and all aboard are feared dead, the flight contractor said on Tuesday.

A copy of the passenger manifest seen by Reuters showed that six foreigners were aboard, from France, India, Canada, Congo Republic, South Africa and Britain, the last two of them pilots.

The remaining 11 passengers were listed in the manifest as citizens of Democratic Republic of Congo.

Rescue helicopters spotted the wreckage early on Tuesday of the 19-seat Beechcraft aircraft, contracted by Air Serv International, around 15 km northwest of the town of Bukavu, on Congo’s eastern border with Rwanda.

The plane had been on its way to Bukavu from the city of Kisangani on Monday when it lost contact with ground control as it made its landing approach in bad weather.

The difficult mountainous terrain and bad weather meant rescue teams could not reach the wrecked plane on Tuesday.

“The aircraft has been found on a steep ridge,” Air Serv International said in a statement posted on its website.

“The aircraft was piloted by two crew members and carried 15 passengers. Aerial survey by helicopter indicates that there are no known survivors,” it added.

The manifest said the flight was carrying aid workers from the Dutch branch of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, Handicap International, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

Two helicopters sent to the crash location were unable to land because of the difficult terrain, and soldiers from the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC) could not initially reach the site by land amid continuing bad weather.

Efforts to reach the wreckage will resume on Wednesday.

“They are hoping to drop a few peacekeepers from a sling from the side of a helicopter, but that will be tomorrow. The site is not accessible by road,” UN military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich told Reuters.—Reuters