from the CNN website
Child only survivor of Sudan crash
Tuesday, July 8, 2003 Posted: 11:28 AM EDT (1528 GMT)
(CNN) -- A child is the only survivor of a Sudan airways passenger jet that crashed, killing 105 passengers and 11 crew.
The plane, a Boeing 737 on a domestic flight, crashed Tuesday morning shortly after takeoff from the Red Sea town of Port Sudan in the northeast of the country.
"Only one child has survived," government spokesman Abdel Hamid Abdeen told CNN. "This is a very, very tragic accident. A big human loss."
The child, a 2-year-old boy, was rushed to hospital in good condition, Red Sea provincial government spokesman Salah Ali Ahmed told Sudanese television, The Associated Press reported.
The plane came down in wasteland about 5 km (3 miles) from Port Sudan airport. No damage or casualties have been reported on the ground.
The pilot reported "technical difficulties" about 10 minutes after the plane took off for Khartoum and crashed a short time later as he tried to return to the Port Sudan airport.
"The pilot contacted the tower and decided to return to the airport. While trying to land, the plane crashed," he said.
Sudan Airways officials said 55 Sudanese men, 27 women,16 children and seven foreigners, including Malaysians and French, were on the flight. No other details on the passengers were known.
The dead were moved from the charred remains of Flight SD 39 to morgues in Port Sudan.
Abdeen said that as far as he was aware the plane had no history of technical problems. Technical teams are being sent from Khartoum to Port Sudan to investigate.
There have been few passenger plane crashes in recent years in Sudan. A year ago, a Sudan Airways cargo plane crashed into a residential area of Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, killing 23 people, mostly passengers and crew.
In 1986, 60 people died when a Sudan Airways passenger plane was hit by a guerilla SAM-7 missile shortly after takeoff from Malakal in southern Sudan, where the Islamic government has been fighting a 20-year civil war with rebels.