Nigeria plane crash kills at least 103
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 spokesman Sam Adurogboye said.
The Sosoliso Airlines’ McDonnell Douglas DC-9 crashed as it approached Port Harcourt, on arrival from the Nigerian capital Abuja. The cause of the accident was unknown.
Frantic family members at the airport said the plane had been carrying 75 schoolchildren home for Christmas holidays, all of them aged between 12 and 16.
Mr Adurogboye said there had been stormy weather at the time of the crash and witnesses said they saw lightning flashes as the plane approached the runway.
“It is a national tragedy for us,” said a spokesperson for Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. “We need to take all the necessary measures to make sure this sort of thing stops happening.”
Nigerian airports have come under criticism in recent months, following a string of near-misses and an incident in which an Air France jet crashed into a herd of cows on the runway at Port Harcourt.
On October 22, an Abuja-bound Boeing 737-200 crashed after taking off from Lagos killing 117 people on board the Bellview Airlines flight.
