Nigerian plane crash leaves 117 dead
Foreign Desk Report
LAGOS (Nigeria)—A Nigerian official said Sunday that new information
showed no one survived the crash of a passenger jet carrying 117
people.Abilola Oloko, a spokesman for Oyo state where the plane crashed
Saturday, said earlier that over half of those on board had survived.
But he later asserted that “the latest reports coming to us say that all
the people on the plane died.” He citing confusion at the crash scene
for the conflicting reports, which could not be immediately verified.
The plane broke apart on impact with swampy earth near Lissa, about 30
km north of Lagos, shortly after leaving for the Nigerian capital of
Abuja on Saturday night.
“I can’t confirm if there are any survivors, but there is no trace so
far,” Nigerian Red Cross General Secretary Abiodun Orebiyi told Reuters
by telephone after visiting the scene.
“The plane was totally destroyed. It was scattered everywhere”.
Dismembered and burned body parts, fuselage fragments and engine parts
were strewn across a large area of disturbed earth, according to images
of the crash scene broadcast by the local AIT television station. A
cheque for 948,000 naira ($US7,200) from the evangelical Deeper Life
church was one of a number of personal papers found in the wreckage.
There was a smoking 20 metre crater where the main impact occurred and
the roofs of nearby houses were blown off by the impact, Orebiyi said.
“The aircraft has crashed and it is a total loss. We can’t even see a
whole human body,” a senior Ogun state police official said from the
crash site.
The Boeing 737-200 was believed to be carrying a top official of the
Economic Community of West African States, a US consular official, two
Britons and some other Europeans, diplomats and airline officials said.
Bellview Airlines flight 210 left at 8:45 pm (1945 GMT) and lost contact
minutes later during a heavy electrical storm. It was carrying 111
passengers and six crew, the Federal Airport Authority said, updating an
earlier figure of 110 passengers. The pilot made a distress call after
take-off, indicating the plane had a technical problem, a source at the
presidency told Reuters.
Distraught relatives wailed and prayed at the Lagos airport as a
Bellview Airlines official read out a list of passengers. The list may
not be entirely accurate because tickets are often transferred between
people in Nigeria, the official said.
The route the airliner was taking is heavily travelled, with dozens of
flights each day between the port of Lagos — one of the world’s biggest
cities — and Abuja in the heart of Africa’s most populous nation. |
