BBC News Online: World: Africa

Victims' families to fly to Abidjan

The airline made the announcement as officials met relatives of the Ivorian passengers in Abidjan - and the search for the crashed plane's flight recorder continued off the nearby coast.

"Our first priority is to fly Nigerians here," Kenya Airways spokesman Fred Kiige said in Abidjan.

"More than half the casualties are from Nigeria."

Many of the families spent Sunday night and Monday waiting at Lagos airport before receiving confirmation of the names of passengers on the flight.
Relatives of the Kenyan passengers will be flown from Nairobi later.

Rescue workers have now called off the search for any more survivors, saying there is no longer any chance of finding anyone alive.

"All we can do now as rescuers is try to fish out bodies to give to the families," said a sailor on one of the private vessels which joined in the search.

Investigation

Representatives of Kenya Airways and Airbus, plus an investigation team from France, are in Abidjan to look into the causes of the crash.

They have refused to speculate on what caused the Airbus A310 to plunge into the sea on Sunday evening, shortly after taking off from Abidjan en route to Lagos.

Steve Clarke, Kenya Airways' technical director, said the Airbus had no technical problems of any significance and there was nothing of note on its service record.

Ten people survived the crash, but 169 are believed to have died.

Airline officials said 89 bodies have so far been recovered from the sea.

They hope to find Flight KQ431's black boxes - the flight and cockpit recorders - which could help to explain why the plane came down within a minute of taking off.