Saturday, December 10, 2005

60 Dead, Many Children Lost In Runway Crash At Port Harcourt; At Least Seven Survivors, Reuters Says

CNN reported this morning that there were at least "four or five" survivors of a fire of undetermined origin that engulfed a paasenger jet arriving from the Nigerian capital of Abuja on the runway of the Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Air Terminal about 2pm Saturday, with 110 souls aboard. It was the second crash of a passenger jet in Nigeria in the past three months.

ERHC On The Move will be updating this site as time permits. We are on assignment in Orlando, Fla., this morning at Disney's Contemporary Resort, covering the Florida Democratic Party Convention here.

Update 12:44pm EST: Reuters has updated the CNN story with a full report on the crash. The number of dead, 60, and the number of survivors, seven, leaves many of those aboard unaccounted for. Some 75 of the passengers were children from a Jesuit school in Abuja.

Port Harcourt has played an important role in recent days for ERHC Energy as Chrome Energy Chairman Sir Emeka Offor has joined with the Chinese National Petroleum Corp. and Essar Oil of India in a bid to buy the Port Harcourt Refining Company, the nation's largest refinery.

It is unknown whether any executives or engineers associated with that bid may have been aboard.

Here is the Reuters story:





Plane crashes in Nigeria, at least 60 dead: official

Crashed Nigerian plane carried 75 students: parent
Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:11 PM ET

By Austin Ekeinde


PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 60 people died on Saturday when a Nigerian passenger plane carrying 110 people crashed on landing in the oil city of Port Harcourt and burst into flames, a Nigerian aviation official said.

A mother awaiting news of her child at the Port Harcourt airport said the plane was carrying 75 secondary school students from a Jesuit college in the capital Abuja.

"I called the school and they confirmed there were 75 students on board," said the mother, who was distraught and did not give her name.

The plane, traveling from Abuja to Port Harcourt, was operated by private Nigerian carrier Sosoliso.

A national aviation official said 60 bodies were recovered from the site and seven survivors had been found. He said the search continued for the rest of the planes' passengers and crew.

He said the plane missed the runway when landing and burst into flames.

The disaster comes seven weeks after a plane operated by another Nigerian airline, Bellview, crashed near the commercial capital Lagos killing all 117 people on board.

Sosoliso flies many domestic routes daily. It is one of only two airlines that operate on the busy Abuja to Port Harcourt line.

The aviation industry of Africa's most populous country has grown dramatically in the past decade, but it has been struck by a number of fatal air crashes.

An inquiry is under way into the Bellview crash but there is no word yet on the cause and investigators have not found the voice or flight data recorders.

Experts say most of the country's commercial fleet is over 20 years old and second hand, while runways close regularly due to poor maintenance.


(Additional reporting by Tume Ahemba in Lagos and Estelle Shirbon in Abuja)

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