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Old 23rd Oct 2005, 13:23
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Gunship
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Unhappy Race to save crash survivors



Nigerian rescue teams raced to recover injured survivors on Sunday after an airliner with 117 people on board crashed in a remote rural area.

"More than half of the people on board survived," said Adeola Oloko, chief press secretary to the government in Oyo State north of Lagos, where the aircraft came down, announcing a major rescue effort.

A message had been broadcast across Oyo State calling for all health workers to make their way to the crash site in the town of Kishi, 400km north of Lagos, he said.

The Bellview Airlines Boeing 737 airliner took off at 19:50 (18:50GMT) on Saturday from Lagos on a scheduled service bound for Abuja and rapidly vanished from radar screens, aviation officials said.

"We lost contact with it about three minutes after take-off," said a Bellview staff member at the firm's office in Lagos domestic airport.

Officials initially said that there were 116 people on board, but a copy of the flight manifest passed to reporters listed 111 passengers and six crew.

President Olusegun Obasanjo's office called for Nigerians to pray for the victims and said that emergency reponse teams and rescue helicopters had been sent to the scene.

The president's spokesperson, Remi Oyo, confirmed that there had been survivors, but could not say how many. "God has been gracious, but I don't have the figures yet," she said.

A spokesperson for the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), the 15 nation regional bloc, said the group's deputy executive secretary for politics, defence and security, Malian General Cheik Oumar Diarra, and a Ghanaian finance officer, Emmanuel Quaye, were on board the flight.

It was not clear whether they were among the survivors.

Diplomats said that they had been told that the plane was missing. It was not clear whether any foreign citizens were on board but the service is popular with expatriates travelling to Abuja.

Nigeria has a terrible record for aviation safety and has been the scene of numerous crashes, including an accident in May 2002 when an airliner plunged into a suburb of Kano, killing 115 on board and scores more on the ground.

There have been a number of recent near misses, including an incident in July in which an Air France jet arriving in the oil city of Port Harcourt from Paris hit a herd of cows.

No-one was hurt in the incident, but the plane was badly damaged.
Full report

Very early for rumours but lost contact 3 minutes after take off and crashed 400 km away - eischhh does not calculate unless total loss of electrics ?

To top the tradegy I see the Nigerian First Lady died while undergoing surgery in Spain.

RIP
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