A Kenya Airways jet with 114 people on board crashed early Saturday after sending out a distress signal over a remote rainforest in southern Cameroon, officials said. Nearby villagers reported hearing a loud boom. The Nairobi-bound jet went down near the town of Lolodorf, about 155 miles south 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, said Bayeck, speaking 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 had been spotted. He said residents in the area, which has few roads and is dotted by small villages, reported hearing a "large boom" during the night. "Searchers have gone out looking in this area," he said.
          Kenya Airways CEO Titus Naikuni said the plane, which was almost new, took off an hour late because of rain. Kenya's transport minister, Ali Chirau Makwere, said it was too early to determine the cause of the crash. The last crash of an international Kenya Airways flight was on Jan. 30, 2000, when Flight 431 was taking off from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on its way to Nairobi. Investigators blamed a faulty alarm and pilot error for that crash, which killed 169 people.