NIGERIA: Scene of devastation at crash site leave very little hope for survivors of Nigerian air disaster

Record ID: 236507

  • Title: NIGERIA: Scene of devastation at crash site leave very little hope for survivors of Nigerian air disaster
  • Date: 24th October 2005
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF ONLOOKERS WITH MOUTHS COVERED
  • Embargoed: 8th November 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVADZWTMVHYDQCAWNWYTOKTM53OL
  • Story Text: A huge impact crater at the site where a Nigerian airliner with 117 people aboard crashed and disintegrated left very little room for hope of survivors, despite confused reports from the area on Sunday (October 23). Dismembered and burned body parts, fuselage fragments and engine parts were strewn over an area the size of a football field near the village of Lissa, about 30 km (20 miles) north of Lagos.
    The plane disintegrated on impact with marshy earth shortly after leaving on a scheduled flight for the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Saturday night. A wig, human intestines, clothes, foam seats and a hand were visible wedged in the sodden earth surrounded by uprooted trees. A cheque for 948,000 naira ($7,200) from the evangelical Deeper Life church was one of a number of personal papers found in the smouldering wreckage.
    There was a smoking 70 foot (20 metre) crater where the main impact occurred and the roofs of nearby houses were blown off by the impact, Orebiyi said.
    The Boeing 737-200 was believed to be carrying a top official of the Economic Community of West African States, a Nigerian presidential aide, a U.S. consular official, two Britons and some other Europeans, diplomats and airline officials said.
    "It would be a miracle if anyone survived," one man at the crash site said.
    Bellview Airlines flight 210 left at 8:45 p.m. (1945 GMT) and lost contact minutes later during a heavy electrical storm. It was carrying 111 passengers and six crew, the Federal Airport Authority said, updating an earlier figure of 110 passengers. The pilot made a distress call after take-off, indicating the plane had a technical problem, a source at the presidency told Reuters. Distraught relatives wailed and prayed at the Lagos airport as a Bellview Airlines official read out a list of passengers. The list may not be entirely accurate because tickets are often transferred between people in Nigeria, the official said.
    The route the airliner was taking is heavily travelled, with dozens of flights each day between the port of Lagos -- one of the world's biggest cities -- and Abuja in the heart of Africa's most populous nation.
    Earlier on Sunday, a spokesman for Oyo state, Adeola Oloko, said the crash was 150 kms (100 miles) north of Lagos and about half the passengers had survived. Emergency rescue helicopters went to that site only to find nothing there.
    Oloko later retracted that statement in a telephone conversation with Reuters. Aviation analysts questioned why there was so much confusion and delay in finding the crash. Bellview Airlines is a privately owned Nigerian airline and is popular with expatriates. It recently began international flights to India and London. In Seattle, Boeing spokeswoman Liz Verdier said the company would work with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board if the board was asked to help with any investigation in Nigeria. She said the 737 was the "workhorse of the world commercial jet fleet".
    More than 140 people died in May 2002 when a Nigerian airliner slammed into a poor suburb in the northern city of Kano, killing people on board and on the ground. The aircraft ploughed into about 10 buildings shortly after take-off.
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