TRIPOLI – A Libyan Airbus jet crashed early yesterday as it tried to land at Tripoli airport, killing 103 people on board, most of them Dutch, and leaving a young Dutch boy the sole survivor, Libyan officials said.
One of the dead was an Irish woman living outside Ireland, the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The Airbus A330- 200, which had been in service only since September, was flying from Johannesburg to the Libyan capital when it crashed just short of the runway at about 6am, the airline and planemaker said.
Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende said there were several dozen Dutch passengers. Libyan officials said 22 of the victims were Libyans.
“Everybody is dead, except for one child,” Libyan transport minister Mohamed Zidan told a news conference at Tripoli airport. The aircraft was carrying 93 passengers and 11 crew, Libyan officials and airline executives said.
The minister said investigators were working out what went wrong with Afriqiyah Airways Flight 8U771 but he ruled out terrorism. Libyan online newspaper Quryna, which has close ties with the government, reported that the pilot had contacted the control tower to ask them to alert emergency services because there was a problem with the aircraft.
The sole survivor was a 10-year- old Dutch boy who was in hospital but did not have life-threatening injuries, the Libyan transport minister said.
It was possible some of the passengers had been bound for Britain because the flight from Johannesburg connects in Tripoli with an Afriqiyah Airways service to London.
Dutch Motorists Association ANWB, which has an emergency assistance service for Dutch people abroad, said 61 Dutch nationals were killed. A spokeswoman said they were travelling on tours organised by travel agencies Stip Reizen and Kras.
Saleh Ali Saleh, head of the Afriqiyah Airways legal department, said the aircraft’s black boxes had been recovered from the crash site. Afriqiyah Airways, which is owned by the Libyan state and was established in 2001, has never before had a crash.
The aircraft is the same type as Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic on June 1st last year. The cause of that crash has not been firmly identified.