The wreckage of a Kenya Airways jetliner that crashed was found late Sunday, but the fate of its 114 passengers and flight crew members remains unknown.

The wreckage was found about 19 kilometres southeast of the city of Douala in Cameroon along its flight path. It had been difficult to spot because it was hidden by a thick canopy of trees, officials said.

The Nairobi-bound Boeing 737-800 had departed from Douala airport early Saturday, an hour late because of rain, with 105 passengers and nine crew members on board. The plane issued a distress call, but then lost contact with the radio tower between
11 and 13 minutes after takeoff, officials said.

The search for the wreckage initially focused on the thickly forested mountains near the town of Lolodorf, about 120 kilometres southeast of coastal Douala. But when it was found just 19 km away, questions arose about whether the plane had flown some distance and then turned around and headed back to the airport along the same flight.

"It is remotely possible that the plane could have inadvertently gone into some extremely turbulent air and suffered massive hail damage or a sudden structural failure," said Kenya Airways chief executive Titus Naikuni.

One of the many unanswered questions is why the plane stopped emitting signals after an initial distress call. The plane is equipped with an automatic device that should have kept up emissions for another two days.

"Why the signal is not being heard right now, we're not quite sure," Naikuni said.

This crash is the first for Kenya Airways in seven years. Its last crash, also in western Africa, claimed 169 lives.