DR Congo plane crash bodies found

Seventeen bodies have now been recovered from the site of a crashed plane in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN says.

The plane, carrying two crew members and 15 passengers, went down as it tried to land on an airstrip in the town of Bukavu on Monday.

The passengers on board were aid workers - seven of whom worked for the United Nations.

Others worked for private international humanitarian agencies.

The victims include Canadian, Indian, French and Congolese nationals - some of whom were working for aid groups, Medicins Sans Frontieres and Handicap International.

The plane's black box flight recorder has been recovered and will be examined to find out what caused the plane to crash.

The wreckage of the Beechcraft plane was found by UN peacekeepers who are deployed in the region.

A UN spokesman said fragments of the plane were scattered over a forested mountain area, 15km (nine miles) north-west of the airstrip in Bukavu.

'Not instantaneous'

"We have recovered 17 bodies of the victims and we are going to transport them to Bukavu," Lt Col Jean-Paul Dietrich, military spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo, was quoted as saying.

The plane, which had started its journey in the capital, Kinshasa, had made several stops on its way to Bukavu.

But it lost contact with ground control after leaving its last stop, Kisangani, on Monday evening.

It was originally believed that the plane had crashed into the mountain, but Col Dietrich said it broke up across the mountain and the bodies were in good condition.

"It's possible that their death was not instantaneous," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

While the wreckage was seen on Tuesday, heavy fog had prevented rescuers from getting to the site, Col Dietrich added.

The plane was operated by Air Serv. It provides air transport for international aid agencies who arrange their own air travel for staff in DR Congo because of the country's poor air safety record.