A KENYAN cabinet minister and an assistant minister have been killed along with two other people after their small plane crashed in southwestern Kenya, according to Mwai Kibaki, the country’s president.

Kipkalya Kones, the roads minister, and Lorna Laboso, the assistant home affairs minister, were aboard when the plane crashed on Tuesday.

The pilot and a security guard were also killed. “The wreckage has been found and there are no survivors,” Kibaki said.

“Our country has lost leaders of immense potential at their prime age and with a promising future. Let us all remain united at this moment of sorrow as a nation.”

The light aircraft crashed into an unoccupied house at 3pm (1200 GMT) near Narok town, about 220km southwest of Nairobi, Charles Otieno, a police spokesman, said earlier. Aircraft ‘disintegrated’ The plane was operated by Nairobi-based Flight Trade Limited and was bound for Kericho, Kenya’s tea-farming capital in the Rift Valley.