Official: Tourists and pilots die in Kenya crash

NAIROBI, Kenya – A plane crashed minutes after it had taken off in the famed Masai Mara game reserve killing four people, including two German tourists, officials said Wednesday

Kenya's Tourism minister Danson Mwazo said two Germans, a mother and her son, died alongside two Kenyan pilots. Mwazo said the plane was carrying 11 tourists, including a family of five Germans, as well as four Americans and two Czech nationals.

He said two women from the family of Germans were critically injured and the other also survived. He said the Czech nationals were not seriously injured.

The condition of the four Americans, who were also from one family, was "relatively good" and they were transported to a hospital in the capital on a police helicopter, said Dr. Bettina Vadera, the chief executive of the Flying Doctors which sent two aircraft to evacuate the injured.

"Most of them got away with soft tissue injuries," she said.

At this time of the year the Mara is popular with tourists who flock to watch the migration of millions of wildebeests and zebra search for water from southern Serengeti in Tanzania.

Dr. Vadera said the aircraft was completely destroyed after it came down nose-front after taking off.