WORLD / Africa
Nigerian plane crash kills 99
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-10-30 10:51
Officials, emergency and Red Cross workers are seen at the crash site of
an ADC Airlines airplane in Abuja, October 29, 2006. [Reuters]
A Nigerian passenger jet crashed shortly after takeoff from the capital
Abuja on Sunday, killing 99 people including the leader of the nation's
70 million Muslims.
Related readings:
98 feared dead in Nigerian plane crash
Key figure:
Nigerian sultan among crash dead
Chronology:
Major plane crashes in the last 2 years
Officials said 106 people were on board the Boeing 737 flight to the
northern city of Sokoto when it ploughed into a corn field about 2 km (1
mile) from the runway.
Seven people survived the crash. It brought the number killed in Nigerian
air accidents to at least 335 in the last year.
A Reuters correspondent saw burned bodies, some missing limbs or heads,
being loaded onto trucks from the smouldering remains of the fuselage.
Only the plane's tail, an engine and part of a wing were still
recognisable at the crash site, an area the size of a football field
littered with body parts, smouldering fires and shreds of clothes, bags
and metal.
"The smell is something you don't want to remember," said Steve Noble, a
British diplomat at the scene.
Among the dead was Ibrahim Muhammadu, who as Sultan of Sokoto was the
leader of the Muslim community which makes up about half of Africa's most
populous nation.
"The plane crash that happened in Abuja led to the death of our beloved
Sultan ... among about 100 people," the governor of Sokoto state,
Attahiru Bafarawa, told reporters.
The late news bulletin on state television showed images of the sultan's
coffin being buried in Sokoto by a crowd of men in white robes. His son,
a senator, also died in the crash.
The Sokoto governor declared six days of mourning for the sultan, who was
also the top traditional ruler of northern Nigeria. A respected figure,
he helped to curb religious bloodshed in the central state of Plateau in
2004.
Survivors
The director of Abuja's National Hospital, speaking on state television,
said seven survivors had been brought in, of whom six were in a stable
condition and one was in intensive care.
The minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nasir el-Rufai, said the
crash took place in bad weather but added that only a detailed
investigation could determine the cause.
ADC is a popular domestic airline with an ageing fleet of Boeing jets.
It was the fourth significant air crash in Nigeria in just over a year.
On October 22 last year, 117 people died when a Bellview Airlines Boeing
737 crashed in the countryside shortly after takeoff from the commercial
capital Lagos.
Seven weeks later, a Sosoliso Airlines DC9 crashed on landing in Port
Harcourt, the oil industry hub in the southeast. The crash killed 106
people, half of whom were children on their way home from boarding school
for the Christmas break.
And on September 17 this year, 10 army generals and three other military
personnel were killed when a small air force plane crashed in central
Benue state.
The latest tragedy comes a month before the aviation industry is due to
undergo an audit. After last year's crashes, President Olusegun Obasanjo
had ordered airlines and aviation authorities to improve safety standards.
Air traffic in Nigeria has more than doubled to over 8 million passengers
a year in the last seven years, but the ageing airports and fleets have
struggled to cope with the boom.
Abuja airport remained open on Sunday, with flights arriving and leaving
as usual even though emergency vehicles were racing across the tarmac on
their way to and from the crash site.
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