TheAustralianPost.com

Six Australian Mine Executives Die in Congo Plane Crash

Left to Right: Geoff Wedlock, Ken Talbot, Craig Oliver, Don Lewis, John Carr-Gregg and John Jones

Six Australian mining executives were killed when their chartered aircraft, twin turboprop Casa C212 crashed in a dense forest of West African nation of Congo. The aircraft was carrying board members of Perth based mining company Sundance Resources, a small Australian listed iron ore group that is developing an iron ore project in Cameroon. Onboard was also Australian billionaire Ken Talbot, founder of Macarthur Coal.
The board had shared the flight because Talbot’s private jet could not land on the airstrip at Yangadou, a remote mining town where only small planes can land. Those executives who died on the plane crash were Geoff Wedlock, a former BHP Billiton executive and Sundance Chairman, Don Lewis the Chief Executive of Sundance, company secretary John Carr-Gregg and two non-executive directors John Jones and Craig Oliver and Queensland mining magnate and Sundance non-executive directory, billionaire Ken Talbot.
Also onboard were two British, two French citizens and an American. Among the two French one was the pilot and the other was Natasha Flason, a French woman based in Australia who worked for Mr Talbot’s private investment company the Talbot Group. One American Jeff Duff who was working as a consultant for Sundance and two British citizens, one was the pilot along with another French pilot.
Australian Foreign Minister said, “It will take longer than families would wish to repatriate the bodies.”

Ruins of aircraft chartered by Western Australian mining company Sundance has been found in West Africa Jungle

Dense Congo Jungle the sight of plane crash