A military plane has crashed in South Africa's mountainous east, killing 11 officers, the air force Thursday. "On board the aircraft was a crew of six and five passengers and it was confirmed that there are no survivors," the Air Force said in a statement. The wreckage of the C-47 Dakota was found in the Drakensberg mountains, after a search a rescue effort hampered by bad weather.

Officials said the plane took off from Pretoria's Waterkloof Air Force Base and was scheduled to land at around 10:00 am (0800 GMT) in Mthatha, a small airport in the Eastern Cape that is the closest to Nelson Mandela's rural homestead of Qunu, where he has lived since retiring from public life.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012