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Nigerian jet crash kills at least 100 flying for holidays
Associated Press
Published December 11, 2005
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria - A Nigerian jetliner carrying 110 people, most of them children heading home for Christmas, crashed in a lightning storm Saturday while landing in a delta oil port, and at least 103 people were killed, officials said.
A spokesman for President Olusegun Obasanjo called the disaster "a national tragedy."
Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Sam Adurogboye said early reports indicated that seven people survived the crash of the Sosoliso Airlines' McDonnell Douglas DC-9, which left the capital, Abuja.
He did not say if the survivors were passengers or crew members.
In Lagos, Sosoliso spokesman Simbo Olorufemi would only confirm that the crash had occurred, saying, "Most of the passengers might have lost their lives."
The crash was Nigeria's second airplane accident in seven weeks - raising questions about air safety in Africa's most populous nation.
An airport worker said burned bodies lay across the landing area after the plane broke into pieces.
Frantic family members at the airport said the plane was carrying 75 pupils heading home from Abuja for Christmas. The pupils, students at the Loyola Jesuit School, were between 12 and 16 years old.
Adurogboye said there was stormy weather around the airport at the time of the 2:08 p.m. crash and witnesses reported seeing lightning flashes as the plane approached the runway.
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 Web site.
Information Minister Frank Nweke said Sosoliso had a reputation for being efficient and reliable.
"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."
He added: "It's a very terrible situation and very sad." Obasanjo was "devastated," he said.
[Last modified December 11, 2005, 02:15:36]
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