WORLD / Africa
98 feared dead in Nigerian plane crash
(AP)
Updated: 2006-10-30 06:26
People look at the wreckage of a Nigerian airliner in a field in Abuja,
Nigeria Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006. [AP]
ABUJA, Nigeria - A Nigerian airliner with 104 people on board slammed
into the ground moments after takeoff on Sunday - the third deadly crash
of a passenger plane in less than a year in this West African nation
known for its notoriously unsafe air industry. Six people survived, and
the rest were believed dead.
Among those killed was the man regarded as the spiritual leader of
Nigeria's Muslims, and thousands of people gathered at a regional airport
to receive his body.
The Boeing 737 crashed one minute after taking off from Abuja airport,
said Sam Adurogboye, an Aviation Ministry spokesman. President Olusegun
Obasanjo ordered an immediate investigation into the cause of the crash,
his spokeswoman Remi Oyo said.
Rescue workers found debris from the smashed plane, body parts and
luggage strewn over an area the size of a football field. The plane went
down inside the sprawling airport compound about two miles from the
runway. Smoke rose from the aircraft's mangled and smoldering fuselage.
Its tail hung from a tree.
Emergency workers pulled blackened corpses from the wreckage, then
covered the bodies with white sheets and hauled them away in stretchers.
An Associated Press reporter counted at least 50 cadavers, though other
bodies had been transported earlier to local morgues.
Through the day, airport security officials kept back anxious people
seeking information about friends or loved ones.
Adurogboye said 104 passengers and crew had been aboard the doomed
flight, and he knew of six survivors who had been taken to a hospital.
"Obviously the rest are feared dead," he said.
The plane was bound for the northwest city of Sokoto, about 500 miles
northwest of Abuja, state radio said, adding that it had gone down during
a storm. Witnesses said there was a rainstorm around the time the
aircraft took off, but rains later subsided, giving way to overcast skies.
In an announcement broadcast on state radio, the Sokoto state government
announced the sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Maccido, died in the crash.
Maccido headed the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in
Nigeria. The panel determines when Muslim fasts should begin and end, and
decides policy for Nigeria's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims.
Maccido was immediately flown to Sokoto, where thousands of people were
at the airport to receive his body. He was buried Sunday in accordance
with Islamic custom, and the Sokoto state government declared six days of
mourning.
Mustapha Shehu, spokesman for the Sokoto state government, had said
earlier that the sultan's son, Muhammed Maccido, a senator, also was
aboard the flight, along with Abdulrahman Shehu Shagari, son of former
Nigerian President Shehu Shagari, who was in office between 1979 and
1983. Their fates were not immediately known.
About half of Nigeria's 130 million people are Muslims. The country is
the most populous in Africa and the continent's leading oil exporter.
Oyo said Obasanjo was "deeply and profoundly shocked and saddened ... he
offers condolences to all Nigerians, especially family, friends and
associates of those who may have been on board."
The 23-year-old aircraft, a Boeing 737-2B7 owned by Aviation Development
Co., a private Nigerian airline, was manufactured in 1983, Adurogboye
said. ADC last suffered a crash in November 1996, when one of its jets
plunged into a lagoon outside Nigeria's main city, Lagos, killing all 143
aboard.
Last year, two planes flying domestic routes crashed within seven weeks
of each other in Nigeria, killing 224 people.
On Oct. 22, 2005, a Boeing 737-200 belonging to Bellview airlines crashed
soon after takeoff from the country's main city of Lagos, killing all 117
people aboard. On Dec. 10, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 plane operated by
Sosoliso Airlines crashed while approaching the oil city of Port
Harcourt, killing 107 people, most of them schoolchildren going home for
Christmas.
Earlier this month, authorities released a report blaming the Sosoliso
crash on bad weather and pilot error. The investigation of the Bellview
crash is still continuing.
After last year's air crashes, Obasanjo vowed to overhaul Nigeria's
airline industry, blaming some of the industry's problems on corruption.
Airlines were subjected to checks for air-worthiness and some planes
considered unworthy were grounded.
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