Black Boxes Recovered in Libyan Crash That Killed 103
At least 96 people were killed in the Afriqiyah Airways flight crash in Libya. Photographer: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images
An Airbus SAS jet’s “black box” voice and data recorders were recovered from the wreckage of the Afriqiyah Airways flight that crashed on landing in Tripoli, Libya, killing all but one of the 104 people on board.
Rescue workers recovered 96 bodies after yesterday’s accident along with the flight recorders, Libya’s official JANA news agency said, citing Transportation Minister Mohamed Zeidan. The 93 passengers included 62 Dutch tourists, of whom one, a child, survived, according to Markus van Tol, a spokesman for the ANWB Royal Dutch Tourist Association.
The twin-engine A330 plane “crash-landed in the final approach” after the flight from Johannesburg, airline spokeswoman Elizabeth McQuiggan said in a telephone interview, adding that it’s not clear what caused the accident.
The wide-body plane, powered by engines from General Electric Co., first flew on Aug. 12 last year and was delivered new to Afriqiyah Airways on Sept. 8, according to U.K. aviation consultants Ascend Worldwide Ltd. The crash is the second in 12 months involving an A330, and Airbus said it will provide “full technical assistance” to air-accident investigators.
Zeidan said there is no evidence that terrorism caused the accident, according to JANA. Passengers on the flight came from Britain, Finland, France, Germany, the Philippines and Zimbabwe, as well as Libya, South Africa and the Netherlands, he was reported as saying.
Crash Site
Metal parts from the plane, which crashed at about 6 a.m. local time, were strewn on the ground at the site of the impact, television footage showed, while rescue workers could be seen wearing masks and searching for survivors in the wreckage.
The service, Afriqiyah Flight 771, was also carrying 11 crew members, the Tripoli-based airline said on its website.
Afriqiyah, which was founded in 2001 and serves cities in Africa, Asia and Europe, had an 11-strong Airbus fleet before the crash, including two more A330s, Ascend safety director Paul Hayes said by e-mail.
Of the 93 passengers on the flight, 11 had planned to end their journey in Tripoli, with the rest travelling to onward destinations, a spokeswoman for Johannesburg airport said at a press conference broadcast on Dutch television.
Some 42 people were due to catch a connection to Dusseldorf in Germany, with 32 bound for Brussels, seven for London and one for Paris, she said.
Dutch Victims
Dutch holiday company Kras.nl, part of TUI Travel Plc, had clients on the plane, according to its website. Another tour operator from the Netherlands, Stip Reizen, said 38 of its customers were en route to Dusseldorf, the ANP news agency reported, citing a spokeswoman from the company, and the ANWB’s von Tol said some Brussels-bound passengers were also Dutch.
“This is truly tragic and touches us all,” Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said on national television, adding that there is “uncertainty” about passenger logs and the exact number of people from his country on the flight.
The child who survived is a boy who shouted “Holland, Holland,” while being treated for fractures at a hospital in Tripoli, leading to the conclusion regarding his nationality, Dutch Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Verhagen said.
Forensic experts have been sent to the crash scene in order to aid identification of bodies, the minister said at a press conference in The Hague.
The British Foreign Office confirmed on its website that one U.K. national was on the plane. Afriqiyah’s route network includes London Gatwick airport.
An Airbus A330 operated by Air France crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1 while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing all 228 people on board.
While more than 1,000 pieces of debris and 50 bodies have been found, no definitive reason has been presented for the accident, with early studies suggesting the plane flew into poor weather with speed sensors that weren’t properly functioning. The black boxes from the aircraft have yet to be recovered.
Prior to the Air France incident the A330 had never had a fatal crash in commercial flight, though a development model came down after takeoff during testing, according Hayes, who says there are 650 of the jetliners in operation worldwide.
To contact the reporters on this story: Franz Wild in Johannesburg at fwild@bloomberg.net; Alaa Shahine in Cairo at asalha@bloomberg.net
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