Yaounde, Cameroon ? A Kenya Airways jet that took off during a midnight storm crashed early Saturday with 114 on board after sending out a distress signal over remote southern Cameroon, officials said. Nearby villagers reported hearing an explosion and seeing a flash of fire.

The jet bound for the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, went down near the town of Lolodorf, about 90 miles southeast of the coastal city of Douala, where it had taken off after midnight, said Alex Bayeck, a regional communications officer.

There was no word on survivors, Bayeck said by telephone en route to the crash site. He said search planes were flying over the forested area where the airliner gave off a distress signal but no wreckage has been spotted.

Residents in the area, which has few roads and is dotted by small villages, reported hearing a “large boom” during the night, and some described a flash of fire that looked markedly different from lightning, Bayeck said.

In Lolodorf, close to a dozen ambulances stood ready and a handful of family members of passengers gathered in the city center. Some said they had traveled as far as 250 miles that day.

“I don’t know what to do. I’m just terribly confused. My younger sister boarded this plane that is supposed to have crashed. I hope we can still find her alive,” said Innocent Bonu, a lawyer from the southwestern town of Buea.

Jean Francois Villong, a local official who is coordinating the rescue effort, said the air search stopped with nightfall because helicopters could not operate effectively in the dark, but the ground search was continuing.

“It is very difficult because this area is very mountainous and heavily forested. And we suspect the plane may have fallen into a valley,” Villong said.

He said helicopters will start searching again in the morning and additional rescue workers are expected to reinforce the effort.

Kenya Airways Chief Executive Officer Titus Naikuni held back on confirming the crash “until we see the plane – until then, it’s missing,” he said.

He said the distress call was issued automatically – “from a machine, not a pilot” – but said a crash is not the only reason a plane issues an automatic distress signal.

Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx said the plane that crashed was equipped with an emergency transmitter that sends out an automatic locator signal “in the event of a rapid change in velocity.”

Proulx told The Associated Press by telephone from Seattle that the transmitter would have been activated upon impact and can also be manually turned on by the plane’s flight crew.

The Boeing 737-800 was carrying 114 people, including 105 passengers from at least 23 countries, Kenyan airline officials said.