FROM：AFP，YAOUNDE — Rescuers hunting for a plane carrying 11 foreigners including mining executives that went missing between Cameroon and Congo called off the search for the night Sunday, officials said.

The chartered aircraft was carrying six Australians, two French, an American and two Britons, most of whom were from Austrlian iron ore miner Sundance Resources, when it disappeared over dense jungle on Saturday.

"The search has been stopped for the night," Cameroon's Communications Minister Issa Thiroma Bakary told AFP late Sunday. "The search is very difficult, it is taking place in a dense forest."

Colonel Pomphile Akoli-Awaya of Brazzaville's Maya-Maya airport told AFP the search had been called off for the night on the Congolese side and would resume Monday morning.

The CASA C-212 twin turboprop vanished during a flight from the Congolese capital Yaounde to Yangadou in northwest Congo-Brazzaville, Bakary said.

"It left Yaounde international airport on Saturday June 19 at 9:13 am with an estimated arrival time of 10:20 am (0920 GMT)... The last contact took place at 9:51 am," he 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."

Bakary said the aircraft was operated by a Congo-Brazzaville company, Aero-Service, and chartered by Cam Iron, the Cameroon subsidiary of Sundance Resources.

"The journey came after the holding of an ordinary session of the board of directors of Cam Iron which took place in Yaounde on June 17," he added.

Cameroonian President Paul Biya has set up a crisis panel that is to coordinate the search.

Cameroon has assigned a C-130 Hercules and smaller Piper and Dornier aircraft to search for the plane, and asked local officials, communities and logging firms along its flight path for any clues that might help, he said.

A plane took off for Yangadou from Brazzaville and a helicopter from Libreville, Gabon also joined the search.

An airport official in Yaounde said that nothing unusual had been reported during the missing plane's take-off.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith earlier said the government was "seriously concerned" for those on the flight, confirming that six Australians were among them.

Sundance Resources said in a statement that most of those on board the flight were from the firm and "were visiting the company's iron ore project in Cameroon and Congo."

Australian Associated Press (AAP) quoted Sundance naming those on board as chairman Geoff Wedlock, managing director and chief executive officer Don Lewis, company secretary John Carr-Gregg, and non-executive directors Ken Talbot, John Jones and Craig Oliver.

Queensland mining magnate Talbot founded Macarthur Coal before stepping aside after being accused of making corrupt payments to a then state minister.

AAP reported that Talbot's investment company later on Sunday named a seventh person known to have been on board as Talbot Group executive Natasha Flason Brian, who is from France but lives in Australia.