| LATEST : All 117 Passengers killed in Bellview plane crash |
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| Sunday, 23 October 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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All 117 passengers and crew of a commercial airliner which crashed on an internal flight in Nigeria on Saturday were killed, the government has said.
But officials at the scene said no-one could have survived the plane's impact, the cause of which remains unknown. Senior officials, including an MP and a general, were said to be on the flight. The government has declared three days of national mourning from Monday. President Olusegun Obasanjo urged all Nigerians to pray for the victims and their families. Anxious relatives The pilot of Bellview Airlines flight 210 sent a distress signal just after taking off from Lagos for the Nigerian capital, Abuja, in stormy weather at 2045 (1945 GMT) on Saturday. The plane was first reported found on Sunday morning by a police helicopter search team near the rural town of Kishi, Oyo state, 400km (320 miles) from Lagos. It was suggested 50 people might have survived. But officials later retracted statements about the plane's location and survivors after a TV crew said it had found the aircraft near the village of Lissa in Ogun state, about 50km (30 miles) from Lagos. Images of mangled bodies, twisted chunks of metal and ripped luggage were broadcast. The National Emergency Management Agency said on Sunday afternoon that the plane had crashed and burst into flames in swampland north of Lagos. Spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye told AFP news agency that the plane hit the ground with such speed it was partly buried under ground. No-one on the plane would have lived after the initial impact, he said. Nigerian Red Cross officials confirmed no sign of survivors had been found at the scene. Hundreds of anxious relatives and friends of the 111 passengers and six crew have besieged the domestic terminal of Lagos airport seeking information. The names of those killed, most thought to be Nigerians, have not yet been released. In the meantime, Bellview Airlines has suspended all its flights from Lagos. Bellview's management said the crash was the first by one of its planes in the company's 12-year history, the BBC's Sola Odunfa in Lagos reports. The airline is a private Nigerian company, popular with foreigners and wealthy Nigerians, which flies routes throughout west Africa, mainly using Boeing 737s. Nigeria has one of the world's worst air safety records, having been the scene of several crashes and near-misses. An Air France plane was badly damaged after striking a herd of cows while trying to land in the oil city of Port Harcourt last month. No passengers were hurt. In May 2002, a plane crashed near the city of Kano, killing nearly 150 people. About 50 may have survived Nigeria air crash Sun Oct 23, 2005 8:14 AM ET LAGOS (Reuters) - There are 50 or more survivors from a crash on Saturday night of a Nigerian airliner carrying 116 people, a state government spokesman said on Sunday. " There are many survivors. 50 or thereabouts. About half," the Oyo state government spokesman told Reuters. A Nigerian airliner with 116 people on board including some senior officials crashed shortly after taking off from Lagos en route to the capital Abuja, the government said on Sunday. Bellview Airlines flight 210 took off at 8:45 p.m. (1945 GMT) on Saturday night and lost contact with the control tower minutes later during a heavy electrical storm. Authorities located the wreckage of the Boeing 737-200 airliner in Kishi, Oyo state, in southwestern Nigeria about 200 km (120 miles) north of Lagos, a police source said about 12 hours later. "The government has been able to confirm that Bellview flight 210 may have gone down, thereby confirming our worst fears," Information Minister Frank Nweke told state radio earlier. Emergency services launched a search and rescue mission. The plane was carrying 116 people: 110 passengers and six crew, authorities said. Initially, it was not known whether the plane had crashed, been hijacked or had made an emergency landing. But the pilot made a distress call minutes after take-off on Saturday night, indicating the plane had a technical problem, a source at the presidency told Reuters. MISSING State radio reported that several high ranking government officials were on the plane, but did not name them. The privately owned Nigerian airline is popular with expatriates. Western diplomats feared several of their citizens could also have been on board. Dozens of flights run each day between the port of Lagos -- one of the world's biggest cities -- and Abuja in the heart of Africa's most populous nation. Boeing spokeswoman Liz Verdier told CNN by telephone from Seattle the company would work with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board if the board were asked to help with any investigation. She said the 737 was the "workhorse of the world commercial jet fleet". Bellview Airlines could not confirm the airliner had crashed 11 hours after it disappeared and concerned relatives at Lagos airport grew impatient with the lack of information. More than 140 people died in May 2002 when a Nigerian airliner slammed into a poor suburb in the northern city of Kano, killing people on board and on the ground. The aircraft plowed into about 10 buildings shortly after take-off. (Additional reporting by Tume Ahemba and Kingsley Igwe in Lagos, Felix Onuah and Camillus Eboh in Abuja) BREAKING NEWS  LAGOS, Nigeria - A Nigerian passenger aircraft carrying 114 people went missing late on Saturday shortly after take-off from Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, local media reported.The aircraft, a Boeing 737-200 operated by Bellview Airlines, lost contact with the control tower five minutes after taking off at 8:45 p.m. on Saturday, said Jide Ibinola, a spokesman for the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria. It was headed for the capital, Abuja. Ibinola said those aboard included 108 passenger and six crew. Their nationalities were not immediately known. Pilots issued a distress call before the plane disappeared from radar about 15 miles west of Lagos over the Atlantic Ocean, state television reported. An airliner that went missing on Saturday night in Nigeria with 116 people on board could have crashed or been hijacked, a spokesman for the Nigerian airport said. “We still do not have concrete information that the aircraft has crashed. We have received calls from people saying they have seen an aircraft, but we do not have concrete information to confirm that,” the official said. “It could have made an emergency landing somewhere,” he added. The authority has embarked on a land search and would deploy helicopters at first light, he added. Most aircraft take off from Lagos, Nigeria's biggest city, in the direction of the Atlantic, and turn back toward the coast. "We still don't have any concrete information of what became of the plane," Ibinola said. "We've tried from neighboring countries to see if the plane landed there but there's no such information." Bellview is a privately owned Nigerian airline that mostly operates a fleet of mostly Boeing 737s on internal routes and throughout West Africa. More details to come The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 23 April 2008 ) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
There had initially been conflicting reports about whether anyone survived. 
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Posted by Robot| 23.10.2005 06:53