Jet Crashes in Libya; Boy Is Said to Be Sole Survivor

Jet Crashes in Libya; Boy Is Said to Be Sole Survivor
By NICOLA CLARK AND MARK McDONALD
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: May 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/world/middleeast/13libya.html?hp


PARIS — A young boy appeared to be the only survivor Wednesday after a Libyan airliner crashed while landing at the airport in Tripoli, killing 93 passengers — most of them Dutch tourists — and 11 crew members on board, Libyan and Dutch officials said.

The plane, Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 from Johannesburg, crashed as it was making its final approach to land around 6 a.m., the airline said. The Libyan transportation minister, Mohammed Zidan, said that at least 96 bodies had been recovered, news agencies reported from Tripoli.

A spokesman for the Royal Dutch Touring Club, ANWB, said 61 of the dead were members of two Dutch tour groups returning from South Africa, one destined for Brussels and the other for Düsseldorf, Germany.

Ad Meijer, a spokesman in The Hague for the Dutch foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, said that embassy staff had not yet verified whether all of the tourists were Dutch citizens, including the boy, whose age had not been confirmed.

“The boy is currently in the hospital and being operated on, so it has not yet been possible for our embassy colleagues to visit him and confirm his identity,” Mr. Meijer said.

The cause of the accident was still under investigation, though Mr. Zidan said the Libyan authorities had already ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack. The plane’s flight recorders had been retrieved from the wreckage and would be analyzed by investigators, he said.

France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analyses said it had sent two investigators to Tripoli and that Airbus had sent a team of five specialists to assist the Libyan authorities.

Images from the scene showed debris from the wreckage strewn across a wide area. Rescue workers wearing surgical masks picked their way through gnarled rows of green-upholstered seats, retrieving remains and personal items such as passports and cellphones. With the exception of the plane’s tail fin and parts of the wings, few large pieces of the plane’s fuselage appeared to have remained intact.

Airbus said the plane was a recent addition to the Afriqiyah fleet that was delivered to the airline in September. The plane had accumulated approximately 1,600 flight hours in some 420 flights.

Daniel Hoeltgen, a spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency in Cologne, said the aircraft had been inspected at least three times in recent months by the French civil aviation authority, which did not find any significant safety problems.

Flight 771 originated in Johannesburg and was due to stop in Tripoli before continuing on to Gatwick Airport near London. The airline’s schedule indicated the plane was an Airbus A330-200 configured for a capacity of 253 passengers.

Passengers aboard the flight reportedly also included Libyan, British and South African nationals.

Speaking at the Hague, the Dutch prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, expressed “shock” at the news.

“This is a large group of Dutch nationals, after all, so it’s a deeply sad message we have this day,” he said.

After a rescue operation was completed on Wednesday morning, the airline referred on its Web site to “the tragic loss” of its flight, although it offered no details about casualties. The airline posted three telephone numbers — in South Africa, Libya and Britain — to call for information about passengers, but customer service operators said they had no passenger lists or details.

“We have no information about any survivors,” said an operator in London.

The airline said the plane crashed just short of the runway as it made its final approach into Tripoli at around 6 a.m. The skies at the time were clear with visibility of 5 to 6 kilometers and very light winds, according to weather reports.

Wednesday’s crash was the first for Afriqiyah, which was founded in Tripoli in 2001. The airline has a fleet of 13 Airbus planes and flies to 25 countries, principally in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

It was the second-deadliest accident involving an Airbus A330 after the crash last June of an Air France flight en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro; 228 people died in that crash.

Nicola Clark reported from Paris, and Mark McDonald from Hong Kong.