Thread: Boy survives deadly Libya plane crash

Boy survives deadly Libya plane crash

Updated 29 minutes ago
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An eight-year-old Dutch boy is believed to be the sole survivor. (AFP: Mahmud Turkia)

• Video: Scores killed in Libya plane crash (ABC News)
• Video: 104 killed in Libyan plane crash (7pm TV News NSW)
• Related Story: Timeline: recent air disasters

An eight-year-old Dutch boy is the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed more than 100 people at Libya's Tripoli airport, officials say.
Libyan transport minister Mohammed Ali Zidan said the boy was in a good condition in hospital.
"His life is not in danger," he told a press conference.
Libyan television showed teams of emergency workers sifting through the wreckage of the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330, which was scattered in a wide arc across the landing area.
"It exploded on landing and totally disintegrated," one security official told AFP.
There was no immediate official word on the cause of the crash, which occurred as the plane was landing about 6:00 am local time.
The airline listed 93 passengers and 11 crew members on board its flight 8U771 from Johannesburg.
"I can confirm the crash but not the number of the dead," said Bongani Sithole, an Afriqiyah Airways official at Johannesburg airport.
"We hear that it happened one metre away from the runway."
A South African foreign ministry spokeswoman said the plane had left Johannesburg the previous evening and was registered as missing.
"We know that there's a plane missing and we are continuing to monitor the situation," ministry spokeswoman Nomfanelo Kota told Reuters.
"It left Johannesburg last night. It was en route to Libya. We have no idea what's happened to it."

Crash site sealed

An AFP correspondent said the crash site had been sealed off by security officials and ambulances, and emergency vehicles were seen rushing between the airport and the capital, about 50 kilometres away.
The wreckage could be seen in the distance but no plumes of smoke were evident.
Weather conditions were good in Tripoli at the time of the crash, with only light clouds in the sky.
Afriqiyah Airways said on its website that it operates an Airbus fleet.
It started operations with five leased planes and signed a contract with Airbus at an exhibition in Paris in 2007 for the purchase of 11 new planes, the website said.
It was founded in April 2001 and at first was fully owned by the Libyan government. The company's capital was later divided into shares to be managed by the Libya-Africa
On April 21 the airline announced that flights were back to normal after disruptions due to the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland that grounded flights in Europe last month.
Last June, a 12-year-old girl was the sole survivor of a Yemeni plane crash off the Comoros.
This recent crash is the deadliest air accident in Libya since December 22, 1992 when a Libyan Arab Airlines plane crashed near Tripoli airport killing 157 people.
Twenty-two people were killed in an oil company plane crash in January 2000.
In other major accidents, 79 people were killed when a Korean Air crashed in Tripoli in July 1989.
And 59 people died in a Balkan Bulgarian Airlines crash near Benghazi in December 1977, while 36 passengers and crew died when a Central African Airways came down in August 1958, also near Benghazi in eastern Libya.




http://abc.com.au/news/stories/2010/...section=justin

- AFP/Reuters

I read that the airline was owned by the Libyan Government. That's the ultimate irony considering Lockerbie and the subsequent events and investigations. Another Airbus A330, the same as Air France 447, the Cathay near crash at Hong Kong and several other ugly incidents within the last year or so.

Very lucky little boy on the one hand but on the other he will have lost family.

Like winning the lottery and loosing the ticket.

Originally Posted by Smug Farang Bore

ike winning the lottery and loosing the ticket.

Amen to that.
R.I.P and good luck to the lad.

Lucky little guy but this just tears my heart out, poor little bugger, his mum and dad gone just like that in a couple of screeching terrifying moments.

Dutch boy who survived Libyan plane crash was returning from safari

The Dutch boy who was the sole survivor in the Libyan plane crash had been returning from a Safari holiday with his parents and brother.



By Lucy Cockcroft
Published: 12:40PM BST 13 May 2010

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Ruben van Assouw inside the Al-Khadra Hospital in Tripoli Photo: Tripoli Post / Barcroft Media

A Libyan policeman walks amid the debris of an Afriqiyah Airways passenger plane which crashed during landing at Tripoli airport Photo: AFP/GETTY


Ruben van Assouw, 9, was identified when footage of him recovering in a hospital bed in Tripoli was shown on television after the accident on Wednesday.
His grandmother, An van de Sande, told a Dutch newspaper that he had been on holiday in South Africa to celebrate his parents' wedding anniversary with them.


The couple, Trudy and Patrick van Assouw, and their elder son Enzo, 11, died when the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330 crashed just short of the runway in Tripoli on its return from Johannesburg.
Mrs van de Sande said: "We don't understand it at all. It is as if we're in a movie."
There had been uncertainty about the young survivor's identity, but the Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed he was able to tell them his name and where he was from on Thursday.
"An employee from the Dutch embassy in Tripoli talked to him. He told them his name is Ruben and is 9-years-old and from Tilburg. He is doing reasonably well considering the circumstances," a spokesman said.
He has suffered serious leg fractures in the accident, which killed all 103 of the remaining passengers and crew, but was said to be "in a stable condition".
Ruben's aunt and uncle travelled to Tripoli in a Dutch government plane on Thursday morning. An embassy official said he smiled for the first time when his family came into the intensive ward.
Two British citizens who were among the casualties have still not been named.
Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs also confirmed a 42-year-old woman with Irish citizenship was on the passenger list. She has been named as Bree O'Mara, an author who was en-route to Britain to sign a book deal.
Afriqiyah Airways have also reported that 70 Dutch, six South Africans, two Libyans, two Austrians, a German, Zimbabwean and French national were also among the dead.
The plane also carried 11 crew members, all with the Libyan nationality. The remaining casualties have still not had their nationalities confirmed.
The aircraft is the same type as Air France flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic on June 1 last year. The cause of that crash has not been firmly identified.

Dutch boy who survived Libyan plane crash was returning from safari - Telegraph

Why would anyone want to fly on an African flag carrier with the the exception of solid South African Airlines and perhaps Kenyan? Was the lower airfare compared to KLM, SAA, BA, AF etc. really worth it?

Package tour - and they let the operator decide what airline they were going to use. They, of course, went for the cheapest deal, and the biggest profit margin for themselves.

Come on, most airlines have a crash from time to time.
Air France anyone?