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Plane \'struck by lightning\'
10/12/2005 20:31 - (SA)

Lagos - A Nigerian jet airliner plunged in flames onto the tarmac at Port Harcourt airport on Saturday killing 103 people, all but seven of those on board, an aviation official said.

There was no official confirmation of the cause of the crash, but witnesses and officials said it had overshot the runway during an electrical storm and may have been struck by lightning.

\"There was an accident at about 14:08 GMT. It involved Sosoliso flight 1145,\" said Sam Adurogoboye, a spokesperson for the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority.

\"The aircraft was a DC-9 with 110 souls on board. Seven were rescued. The rest died,\" he added.

An official at Port Harcourt airport, who asked not to be named, said that a large number of those who were killed were young students returning home for the Christmas holidays.

The flight had arrived from the federal capital Abuja and was landing in Port Harcourt, the main centre of Nigeria\'s oil industry and a base for many international companies.

There was no immediate confirmation of any foreign nationals among the casualties.

A police spokesperson said that 57 bodies had been recovered and that the seven casualties had been taken to hospital.

Horrific scene

\"Rescue operations are still ongoing,\" police spokesperson deputy commissioner Haz Iwendi told AFP.

An executive with an international security consultancy with staff at the airport said: \"What we are hearing is that the plane was struck by lightning about 40 or 50 metres from touching down.

\"The fuel in the wing caught fire and it exploded,\" he added.

An airport worker described a horrific scene at Port Harcourt, saying: \"The place where I\'m standing now is scattered with corpses.\"

He said the dead - \"many of them burned beyond recognition\" - were being evacuated to mortuaries. The plane had shattered \"into many pieces, scattered all over the ground\".

Nigerian airports have come under criticism in recent months following a string of near-misses - including one at Port Harcourt in which an Air France passenger jet crashed into a herd of cows on the runway.

International airlines briefly suspended flights at Lagos\' international airport because of holes in the runway.

In October, an Abuja-bound Boeing 737-200 crashed after taking off from the airport at Lagos, Nigeria\'s biggest city, killing 117 people on board the Bellview Airlines flight.

The exact cause of that crash remains unclear, but US investigators sent to help with the investigation ruled out terrorism, an official at Nigeria\'s Aviation Ministry said last month.

Nigerian-owned Sosoliso Airlines was established in 1994. It began scheduled flights as a domestic airline in July 2000 and now flies to six Nigerian cities, according to its website. - AP/AFP

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Port Harcourt - A Nigerian jetliner carrying 110 people - including dozens of school children - crashed in stormy weather as it approached this southern city, killing at least 103 who were on board.

It was Nigeria\'s second major airplane accident in seven weeks, raising questions about air safety in Africa\'s most populous nation.

Charred bodies and pieces of the wrecked plane were strewn around the disaster site, where rescue workers found only seven survivors who were rushed to an area hospital, Nigerian civil aviation authority spokesperson Sam Adurogboye said.

\"They were breathing and were taken to the hospital. They are responding to treatment,\" he said, but did not say if the survivors were passengers or crew members.

The Sosoliso Airlines\' McDonnell Douglas DC-9 crashed about midday Saturday as it approached the oil centre of Port Harcourt, on arrival from the Nigerian capital Abuja. The cause of the accident was unknown.

An airport worker said burned bodies lay across the landing area after the plane broke into pieces upon impact.

\"The place where I\'m standing now is scattered with corpses.\" The dead - \"many of them burned beyond recognition\" - were being taken to mortuaries, he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak with reporters.

Frantic family members at the airport said the plane had been carrying 75 school children home for Christmas holidays, all of them aged between 12 and 16. They were pupils at the Loyola Jesuit school in Abuja.

Adurogboye said there had been stormy weather around the airport at the time of the crash, and witnesses said they saw lightning flashes as the plane approached the runway. There had been seven crew members on board, Adurogboye said.

\"It is a national tragedy for us,\" said Femi Fani-Kayode, a spokesperson for Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. \"We need to take all the necessary measures to make sure this sort of thing stops happening.\"

Asked whether this raised questions about air safety in Nigeria, he said: \"of course, people would be concerned, in view of the circumstances.\"

Information minister Frank Nweke said Sosoliso Airlines had a reputation for being efficient and reliable.

Established in 1994, Nigerian-owned Sosoliso began scheduled flights as a domestic airline in July 2000 and now flies to six Nigerian cities, according to its website.

\"To my knowledge they haven\'t had any incidents since they started their operation,\" Nweke said. \"So this has come as a surprise, a very big surprise.\"

Sosoliso spokesperson Simbo Olorufemi in Lagos would not comment on details of the crash beyond confirming it had occurred, and saying \"most of the passengers might have lost their lives.\"

Nigerian airports also have come under criticism in recent months, following a string of near-misses and an incident in which an Air France passenger jet crashed into a herd of cows on the runway at Port Harcourt.

International airlines briefly suspended flights at Lagos\' international airport because of holes in the runway.

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