Ecuador intel chief and 5 Americans killed in Kenya tourist helicopter crash

Ecuador’s intelligence chief and five US citizens died when a helicopter carrying tourists crashed in central Kenya on Wednesday, killing all seven people on board, officials said.

The accident happened at 9.13am local time, in Samburu county, north of the capital, Nairobi, according to the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA), after the aircraft departed from the Loisaba wildlife reserve.

Images shared by the Kenya Red Cross on social media in the afternoon showed a crash site in flames.

“There were seven people on board the helicopter, one pilot and six passengers,” said Fredrick Kabunge, director of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Department (AAID), confirming earlier information from an anonymous aviation source that no one survived.

Kabunge did not provide the identities or nationalities of the dead, including the pilot.

But Ecuador’s Transport Minister Roberto Luque said the Latin American nation’s intelligence chief Michele Sensi-Contugi and his wife were among those killed.