Airliner Crashes In Nigeria
At least 106 people were killed when a Nigerian airliner crashed in the northern city of Kano, slamming into buildings as it went down shortly after takeoff, President Olusegun Obasanjo said Sunday.
But Reuters reported that at least 148 bodies have now been recovered from the site of the crash, the Nigerian Red Cross said on Sunday.
"As of this afternoon 104 bodies were evacuated to the Murtala Muhammed Hospital, 42 to the Kano State Specialist Hospital, and two to the army specialist hospital," Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa told Reuters in Lagos.
He said Red Cross vehicles were ferrying the dead to mortuaries as rescuers continued to dig through the rubble at the crash site.
In a radio address, Obasango said that "106 passengers and people in their homes were picked up dead" following the crash Saturday, which prompted him to cut short a trip to Botswana. He said flags would fly at half-staff for two days and promised an investigation into the crash.
The twin-engine EAS Airlines jet crashed in a working-class neighborhood about half a mile from the airport after taking off with 76 people aboard. It tore a three-block swath through mosques and homes and scattering corpses and debris through the area.
At least two people on board survived, aviation authorities said Saturday — one a passenger who rose from his seat amid the wreckage and staggered away, the other a female crew member.
Obasanjo did not say how many of the dead were on the ground. On Saturday, One baby girl was carried away with her burned body wrapped in a yellow rug. Her mother walked alongside, weeping.
Associated Press journalists on the scene soon after the crash saw wailing residents carrying bodies out from amid the plane's shattered parts and the ruins of dozens of buildings.
Residents said the plane tore along at roof level for several blocks, shearing off tin roofs and top stories of modest concrete homes before hitting the ground and exploding.
"It was turning and wobbling," resident Umar Suleman told The Associated Press. "It came down and I thought it was going to hit the mosque, but it looked like it went just past it, and then it hit the houses.
"And after that, everyone was running and screaming."
The plane clipped the minaret of one mosque and smashed full force into a second mosque.
Residents feared especially for anyone who may have been inside praying, in this city in heavily Islamic northern Nigeria.
The tail of the plane jutted out of one man's house. Another part, from the engine, lay in the middle of a street on top of a dead goat.
Suleman said one man was found still in his seat in the wreckage, his forehead covered his forehead. Residents helped the shocked man walk away.
John Okafor, a federal airport authority official, confirmed that one male passenger had survived.
Thousands of Nigerians crowded the ruined neighborhood, crying out in the still-smoldering rubble each time a body was found.
Young men carried each body out on their shoulders, crying, "God is Great."
Most victims had their clothes burned off them.
Initial reports on private radio said there were 105 people on board. Okafor put the number at 76, including crew members.
The passengers onboard included Nigeria's sports minister as well as a number of local dignitaries who had attended the launch in Kano of a biography by Nigeria's former U.N. ambassador Maitama Sule, radio stations reported. The reports could not be independently verified.
The British Aerospace twin-engine jet belonged to Nigeria's private EAS Airlines. It had taken off for Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, 435 miles south of Kano, Okafor said. It crashed at 1:30 p.m.
Aviation authorities said they were searching for the plane's black box, hoping for clues to the crash.
Nigeria's heavily competitive domestic carriers have been locked in a price war in recent months. Some Nigerians have feared maintenance would suffer as a result.
Overall, however, despite having a number of old planes, the local airlines have not had a major crash since the mid-1990s.