737 Down In Sudan

[Gunship]

Not according to News 24 ?

flyboy6876 Heard earlier on that the sole survivor died in the hospital.

Damn shame this.

Not according to this News 24 Article (main news at this hour?

The little Sudanese boy who emerged as the sole survivor of a horrific plane crash which killed 115 people could talk and drink juices on Wednesday as he recovered in a hospital here, doctors and relatives said.

Doctors were mystified as to how three-year-old Mohamed al-Fateh, who was burned and lost part of a leg, had survived Tuesday's crash near Sudan's Red Sea coast, speculating that he was thrown clear of the plane on a piece of wreckage and may have landed on a bush.

The Sudan Airways Boeing 737 was destroyed in a ball of fire as it attempted to land back at Port Sudan after apparently suffering an engine problem soon after takeoff.

"Mohamed is okay. He speaks and drinks juices, thanks to God," his uncle Abdel Hadi Ibrahim Abu-Saba'ah said after seeing the boy in the intensive care ward of the police hospital here.

Mohamed "is in a stable condition, with plastered burns to the face, neck, right hand and right leg," said Abu-Saba'ah, the brother of the boy's mother, Lubna Ibrahim Abu-Saba'ah, who died in the crash.

He said Mohamed was returning with his mother to Khartoum after they attended the wedding of Lubna's cousin in Port Sudan.

State television showed Mohamed in the arms of a doctor, enveloped in a sheet and his left leg wrapped in a bandage, while his face appeared calm but covered with dark spots, perhaps burns or bruises.

He was treated first in a hospital in Port Sudan before being brought to the intensive care unit of Saheroun, a private branch of Khartoum's police hospital, relatives and hospital sources said.

Doctor Abdel Samei Abdallah al-Tayeb told AFP that 14 to 15 percent of Mohamed's body is burnt, including the face, the right thigh, the right hand and the perineum, the area between the anus and the scrotum.

"As the perineum is burnt, the body cannot excrete and therefore we have to do an operation to divert the excretory outlet," said Tayeb, adding that they would do the operation either Wednesday evening or Thursday.

He said it was unclear how the boy lost part of his lower right leg, or even how he survived at all.

"It was likely that he was flung off on a burning piece of the plane, like one from the wing."

Asked about reports from Port Sudan that the boy was found on a thorn bush near the wreckage, Tayeb said the tree might have served as "a cushion that helped the boy to survive".

The doctor said Mohamed was taking fruit juices by the mouth as well as intravenous fluids and rated his chances of survival as high.

The official newspaper Al-Anbaa said the government was assuming all costs of the boy's treatment and reported that he arrived here accompanied by First vice-president Ali Osman Taha, who had led an official delegation to Port Sudan.

Among those killed in the crash was Sudan's air defence commander Major General Nur al-Hoda Fadhlallah and eight foreigners, including three Indians, one Chinese and one Briton.

The pilot of the flight to Khartoum reported "technical problems with one of the engines" 10 minutes after takeoff and told the control tower he was returning to the airport, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mohamed Hassan al-Bahi told Al Anbaa.

The plane crashed and caught fire as it tried to land, hitting the ground about 18km from Port Sudan airport, officials said.

The airline has vigorously denied accusations that slack maintenance was to blame for the crash, while setting up a committee to investigate the causes of the tragedy.

Sudan Airways general manager Ahmed Ismail Zumrawy also denied that the Boeing 737 lacked spare parts, following a statement by Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on Tuesday that "there are no spare parts available to service Boeings in Sudan because of the American embargo imposed in the 1970s."

A US State Department official said later on Tuesday that US sanctions on Sudan include exemptions for spare parts for civilian airliners, rejecting Ismail's claims.


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