Nigerian Jet Crash Kills at Least 103 By DANIEL BALINT-KURTI, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago



LAGOS, Nigeria - A Nigerian jetliner carrying 110 people crashed in stormy weather Saturday while landing in the southern city of Port Harcourt, and at least 103 people were killed, officials said.

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Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Sam Adurogboye said early reports indicated that seven people survived the crash of the Sosoliso Airlines DC-9.

"They were breathing and were taken to the hospital. They are responding to treatment," he said.

He did not say if the survivors were passengers or crew members.

An airport worker said burned bodies lay across the landing area after the plane broke into pieces.

"The place where I'm standing now is scattered with corpses," the worker said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Nigerian-owned Sosoliso Airlines was established in 1994. It began scheduled flights as a domestic airline in July 2000 and now flies to six Nigerian cities, according to its Web site.

Nigerian airports have come under criticism in recent months following a string of near-misses and an incident in which an Air France passenger jet crashed into a herd of cows on the runway at Port Harcourt.

International airlines also briefly suspended flights at Lagos' international airport because of holes in the runway.

In October, an Abuja-bound Boeing 737-200 crashed after taking off from the airport at Lagos, Nigeria's biggest city, killing 117 people on board the Bellview Airlines flight.

The cause of that crash is unknown, but U.S. investigators sent to help with the investigation ruled out terrorism, an official at Nigeria's Aviation Ministry said last month.

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