Dozens survive Nigerian plane crash
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-23 19:59

A passenger jet carrying 117 people crashed shortly after takeoff from Nigeria's largest city, but more than half of those onboard survived, officials said Sunday after search teams reached the wreckage.

A Bellview Airlines air plane seen just before takeoff at the airport in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, Sunday, Oct. 23, 2005. A passenger plane similar to this one carrying 117 people crashed shortly after takeoff from Nigeria's biggest city and President Olusegun Obasanjo called on the country's people to pray for the passengers and their families, officials said Sunday. [AP]

The Boeing 737, which was en route to the capital, Abuja, lost contact with the control tower five minutes after taking off from the international airport in Lagos at 8:45 p.m. on Saturday, said Jide Ibinola, a spokesman for the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria.

The flight is popular among Nigerians and expatriates shuttling between the two cities.

"More than half of those on board survived," said Abilola Oloko, a spokesman for Oyo state, the site of the crash. Oloko urged "all medical personnel to proceed to the crash scene, if they can."

Search teams located the downed aircraft, operated by Nigerian-run Bellview Airlines, near the town of Kishi, 120 miles north of Lagos, police Spokesman Bode Ojajuni said.

Representatives of many countries gathered at the airport to find out if any of their citizens were on board the flight.

The airline said 117 people were on board — 111 passengers and six crew members.

Ibinola said the craft was headed to Abuja, on what was supposed to have been a 50-minute flight. There was no immediate indication the crash was terrorism-related.

President Olusegun Obasanjo's office said in a statement that the leader was personally overseeing search and rescue operations and that he was "asks all Nigerians to pray for all those aboard the plane and their families."

Bellview, one of about a dozen local airlines, is a privately owned Nigerian company that operates a fleet of mostly Boeing 737s on internal routes and throughout West Africa. Bellview first began flying about 10 years ago and has not suffered a crash before.

In May 2002, an EAS Airlines jet — another domestic carrier — plowed into a heavily populated neighborhood after takeoff at the airport outside the northern city of Kano, killing 154 people in the plane and on the ground.