MONTREAL, Oct 14 (AFP) - A cargo jet loaded with seafood and lawn mowers crashed during takeoff from Halifax, Nova Scotia, early Thursday, killing all seven crew, police said.
The Boeing 747 was bound from Hartford, Connecticut for Saragoza, Spain, when it crashed at 4:00 am (0700 GMT) in clear weather after refueling and taking on a load of fish at Halifax, officials said.
The plane belonged to MK Airlines, which has a fleet of 747s and McDonnell Douglas DC-8 freighters registered in Ghana, though the carrier's administrative offices are in Hartfield, East Sussex, southern England.
An official with the airline told CTV television that the victims included four Britons, a German, and two Zimbabweans. Two of the Britons and the German lived in South Africa and the other two Britons lived in Zimbabwe, said Captain John Power, operations manager for the company.
He did not give the identities of the victims.
MK spokesman Steve Anderson said earlier from Britain that all seven crew were Zimbabwean or South African.
Anderson said an MK team was flying to Nova Scotia to assist investigators.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Joe Taplin told a press conference: "We have recovered some of the remains (of the crew) and I can confirm that there are no survivors."
A Transportation Safety Board of Canada spokesman said no black box recorder had yet been recovered from the wreckage.
"It is still a police investigation," said the spokesman. "We are providing technical assistance and we will continue to do so until that investigation changes, if it goes to a safety investigation."
He said there was no indication the plane was carrying an excessively heavy load.
Neither the safety board nor police would confirm witness reports that the jet's tail apparently hit the runway as it nosed up.
Anderson said the company, created in 1990, had been flying the route for 18 months.
Canadian television reported the company's planes had been involved in three other accidents -- all in Nigeria -- in the past 12 months.
The Halifax airport closed immediately after the crash, opening one of its two runways two hours later, an airport spokeswoman said. She said 17 flights were affected, most of them to other Canadian destinations.