Grave fears for missing Aussie mining bosses

A plane carrying the chairman, chief executive officer and top executives of an Australian mining firm has disappeared into the jungle as it flew from Cameroon to Republic of Congo.

The CASA C-212 twin turboprop aircraft, chartered by Australian company Sundance Resources Ltd, was flying from Yaounde in Cameroon to Yangadou in the neighbouring Republic of Congo where the company has a mine, according to a statement released by Sundance Resources Ltd.

News.com.au reported that 11 people were missing, including mining executives Ken Talbot, one of Australia's richest men, Sundance chairman Geoff Wedlock, chief executive Don Lewis, directors Craig Oliver and John Jones, and company secretary John Carr-Gregg. All of the men other than Mr Talbot are believed to be from Perth.

Also on the flight was Talbot Group executive Natasha Flason Brian, who is from France but who lives in Australia, said news.com.au.

It has now emerged that the entire board of miner Sundance breached protocol and boarded a plane together before it went missing in Africa only because circumstances forced them to, the company's former chairman says.

George Jones, who stepped down as Sundance chairman in 2009, said it was unusual for all the members of a board to be on the same flight, but they probably had no other choice.

"It's unusual for an entire board. It actually breaches corporate governance and obviously relates to the fact they could only get on one plane," Mr Jones told Fairfax Radio on Monday.

He said Mr Talbot had his own 19-seat executive jet in Cameroon, but the Yangadou airstrip they were heading for was not long enough for the plane.

"There's a dirt strip there the company had prepared for the small charter craft, but Ken Talbot's plane couldn't land there," Mr Jones said.

"So I think circumstances caused them to all get on the one plane."

A Cameroon official for the company said the plane went missing as it flew to its first stop in Mbalam, another of the firm's mining sites located in Cameroon's eastern region.

The company said families have been notified and a ground search began.

"All operations at site have been suspended, with all in-country resources dedicated to this search and rescue effort," the company said in its statement.

The search is being coordinated by Cameroon, Gabonese and Republic of Congo authorities with support from Australian, Canadian and US foreign officials, it said.

"The aircraft had on board 11 people, including nine passengers and two crew members, comprising six Australians, two French, an American and two Britons," news.com.au reported Cameroon Communications Minister Issa Thiroma Bakary as saying.

The search for the missing plane has been called off for the night and is expected to resume later today, said news.com.au. Cameroon's military is at the forefront of the search. Sundance said it was also helping.

"The search has been stopped for the night," Mr Bakary said.

"The search is very difficult, it is taking place in a dense forest."

Australia's high commissioner to Nigeria travelled to Cameroon yesterday and a consular officer has been dispatched from the Middle East, said news.com.au.

A spokesman for the Talbot Group last night told news.com.au hope was fading for the executives and the crew.

"The situation is not good. We don't have a lot of information, but it's been the best part of 20 hours since the plane was scheduled to land. It didn't report in and there has been no word," the spokesman said.

"We have our fingers crossed, but it's certainly not looking good. There's no signal, no distress beacon and no plane.

"It's a pretty sombre mood (in the Talbot Group) obviously. We're hoping for the best, but we just don't know. We don't want to jump the gun."

The Australian Government said it feared for their lives, reported news.com.au.

"We are seriously concerned about their safety," Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) said a specialist consular officer would bring additional communications equipment to support the DFAT team on the ground.

Sundance Resources also said it would ask the Australian Stock Exchange to suspend the company's shares before trading opens Monday.

Sundance executives had been in Cameroon in recent days to meet with officials about the company's Mbalam project, which could earn the West African country billions of dollars over 25 years, according to the Cameroon official.

Sundance has a 90 percent stake in Cameroon Iron Ore Company (Camiron S.A.) which owns more than 1,800 square kilometres of fields with estimated reserves of 2.2 million tons of mineral resources.

Although Camiron S.A. authorities declined to officially comment on the incident, the company is holding an emergency meeting at its headquarters in Yaounde.

- AP, AAP and NZ Herald staff