Families seek bodies of Nigerian plane crash victims

By Austin Ekeinde

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) – Relatives clutching
photographs crowded Port Harcourt hospital mortuaries on
Sunday, searching for loved ones among the 104 people — nearly
half of them children — killed in a fiery plane crash.

The Sosoliso Airlines flight on its way from the Nigerian
capital Abuja to the southern oil city crashed on Saturday
during a storm and burst into flames at the airport.

Two of seven survivors died on Sunday, raising the death
toll to 104. Aviation officials originally said the plane was
carrying 110 people but on Sunday revised that to 102
passengers and seven crew.

More than 50 of the people on board were schoolchildren
from a Catholic college in Abuja on their way home for the
Christmas break, according to the Abuja archbishop’s secretary.

Also among the people who died in the crash were two
expatriates working for the relief organization Medecins Sans
Frontieres (MSF), the head of mission for MSF France in Nigeria
said.

At the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, about
20 badly burned bodies were laid out on the dirt floor of the
mortuary, a room with no refrigeration or air-conditioning.

Hospital staff sprinkled disinfectant on the bodies, most
of whom were recognizable, and tagged them with numbers.

“All we can do now is bury our dead and mourn. There is so
much suffering here,” said one man among hundreds of relatives
who were weeping and wailing at the mortuary.

Many were holding photographs of their dead relatives.

At first hospital authorities said they could not release
any bodies until full identification had been carried out, but
the governor of Rivers state, where Port Harcourt is located,
visited the hospital and ordered they should be released.

INVESTIGATION BEGINS

Aviation officials said the flight data and voice recorders
have been recovered. A team of investigators from the United
States has begun work to determine the cause of the crash.

“During our investigations, we saw the black box and flight
recorder. We have handed over the crash site to investigators,”
Tomi Oyelade, permanent secretary in the Aviation Ministry,
told reporters in Port Harcourt.

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority is expected to issue
a statement later on Sunday. The Port Harcourt airport has been
closed to all flights.

Sosoliso, which began operations in 2000, had a fleet of
five aircraft — an MD-81, one MD-82 and three DC-9s, one of
which crashed on Saturday, a Sosoliso statement said.

Sosoliso flies many domestic routes and is one of only two
Nigerian airlines that operate the busy Abuja-Port Harcourt
route.

The aviation industry of Africa’s most populous country has
grown dramatically in the past decade, but has been struck by a
series of fatal air crashes.

Seven weeks ago a plane operated by Bellview, another
Nigerian airline, crashed near the commercial capital Lagos
killing all 117 people on board. The cause of that crash has
not been established.

Experts say most of the country’s commercial fleet is over
20 years old and second hand, while runways are often closed
because of poor maintenance. It is not uncommon for planes to
take off and land in torrential rain.

President Olusegun Obasanjo said after the Bellview crash
that Nigeria would “plug loopholes” in its aviation sector and
strengthen compliance with maintenance standards.

(Additional reporting by Tume Ahemba)