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Families seek bodies of Nigerian plane crash victims

Posted on: Sunday, 11 December 2005, 08:52 CST

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)

Source: REUTERS

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