Budapest boxing club says board member, family among 11 killed in Kenya plane crash

KWALE, Kenya (AP) — A Budapest boxing club said on Wednesday that one of its board members and his family were among the 11 killed in a plane crash in Kenya the day before, while en route to Maasai Mara National Reserve.

The Vasas SC sports club said in a statement that Gyula Süllős was “a decades-long supporter” and president of its boxing program.

All passengers on board the Cessna Caravan, eight Hungarians, two Germans and their Kenyan pilot, died when the aircraft crashed in a hilly, forested area of Kenya’s coastal Kwale County, shortly after taking off from an airstrip in the town of Diani.

Kenya’s aviation department secretary, Terry Mbaika, said Wednesday that some of the bodies are yet to be recovered. The roads leading to the crash site are not paved and the Kenyan coastal side has witnessed heavy rain.

Mbaika also said the investigation would take 30 days, promising to “do everything possible” to ensure its transparency.

The airline, Mombasa Air Safari, said in a statement Tuesday the pilot failed to communicate upon departure and that the airport control tower tried to reach him for 30 minutes before the plane was located.

Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said Tuesday on social media that the Hungarian victims included two families. Two children among the dead, he wrote.

Kenya’s performance in accident investigation fell below the global average, according to the most recent safety oversight audit for Kenya posted on the International Civil Aviation Organization site in 2018.

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Associated Press writer Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to this report.