Namibia finds Mozambique plane wreck, all on board dead

The flight was meant to land in Luanda in the early afternoon

The wreckage of a Mozambique Airlines plane that disappeared over Namibia has been found, but none of the 34 people aboard survived the crash, police say.

The burned-out aircraft was found in the Bwabwata National Park, near the borders with Angola and Botswana.

"The plane has been completely burnt to ashes and there are no survivors," Namibia Police Force deputy commissioner Willy Bampton was quoted by Reuters as saying.

The plane left Mozambique on Friday.

Flight TM470 took off from the country's capital, Maputo, at 11:26 (09:26 GMT) and was due to arrive in the Angolan capital, Luanda, at 14:10.

The last contact made with the plane was when it was over northern Namibia.

The authorities say most of those on board were Mozambican or Angolan, and several more were Portuguese. The aircraft also carried one citizen from each of Brazil, China and France.

Initially, the airline said there were signs the aircraft might have landed near Rundu.

But on Saturday, Mr Bampton said villagers in the area had heard an explosion.

"Botswana officials informed us that they saw smoke in the air and they thought the crash happened in their country, but when they came to the border they realised that it was in Namibia," Willie Bampton said.

The Bwabwata National Park in Namibia's Kavango East region - covering around 6,100sq km (2,355 square miles) - is a sparsely-populated area of dense forests.