|
ABUJA, Oct 23: A Nigerian airliner with 116 people on board crashed in a remote rural after losing contact with air traffic control shortly after take-off, officials said.
Around half of the 116 passengers and crew on board a crashed Nigerian airliner survived, a spokesman for the local state government told news agencies.
The office of Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo said rescue teams were heading to the scene of the crash, but there was no immediate word on whether there were any survivors or on what caused the disaster.
"There were 110 people on board and six crew," Information Minister Frank Nweke told AFP.
"The wreckage was found near Kishi. All the relevant emergency agencies are on their way to the scene," he said.
Kishi is a small rural community 400 kilometres (245 miles) north of Lagos on the border of Oyo and Kwara states. Officials said helicopters were on their way to the crash site.
The Bellview Airlines Boeing 737 airliner took off at 7:50 pm (1850GMT) Saturday from Lagos on a scheduled service bound for Abuja and rapidly vanished from radar screens, aviation officials said.
"We lost contact with it about three minutes after take-off," said a Bellview staff member at the firm's office in Lagos domestic airport.
Some senior Nigerian officials and officials of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) were on board the flight, she said.
ECOWAS spokeswoman Adrienne Diop confirmed that some of the bloc's most important officials were on board, but said that their names would only be released once their families had been informed.
Diplomats said that they had been told that the plane was missing. It was not clear whether any foreign citizens were on board but the service is popular with expatriates travelling to Abuja.
Nigeria has a terrible record for aviation safety and has been the scene of numerous crashes, including an accident in May 2002 when an airliner plunged into a suburb of Kano, killing 115 on board and scores more on the ground.
There have been a number of recent near misses, including an incident in July in which an Air France jet arriving in the oil city of Port Harcourt from Paris hit a herd of cows.
No-one was hurt in the incident, but the plane was badly damaged.
Bellview is a Nigerian-owned private airline operating routes within Nigeria and west Africa and from Lagos to London. Its service to Abuja is popular with diplomats and international businessmen.
In Lagos, friends of those on board began receiving worried calls late in the evening after the flight did not arrive as planned, but officials could offer them little comfort.
Lagos is Nigeria's biggest city and main port but the country's capital has been moved to Abuja and flights between the two cities are usually busy.
|